Ten

Cupid’s Gardens

My Own Dear Gallant,

I’m about to expire of a widow’s ennui.

Meet me at 1:00 at the stairs of Cuper’s Garden

where we might walk and take tea.

Lady M.

How poetical, Philip reflected dryly before re-pocketing the foolscap. He was yet unsure how he felt about this somewhat clandestine meeting. He didn’t trust Lady Messingham. His instinct told him not to. It warned she was intent on a far deeper game than she let on, but part of him, the reckless part, didn’t care. She’d singled him out amongst many men who would gladly share her company, heady stuff unto itself. Moreover, rather than seeing him as a ne’er-do-well as did so many others, she openly admired his dubious skills and even looked to him as a mentor. He couldn’t make sense of it, but there it was.

Philip had tried to heed George’s advice and forget her, yet he found himself unable to dismiss Lady Messingham from his mind. He just couldn’t seem to move beyond that night at Marylebone, or the interlude on the terrace at Belsize House. His attraction had become a powerful force that battered against his common sense and against his will, and although his gut said to stay away he just couldn’t get enough of her.

Nevertheless, while his masculine pride rejected the idea of dangling after a woman, this same pride drove him to pursuit. She was so unlike any other he had known, but was this hold, just as George had suggested, simply because she was above his touch? Philip couldn’t deny that was part of the appeal. Her occasional displays of aloofness and patronizing disdain simply made the conquest more challenging.

Until now, the fair sex had never presented the slightest resistance. Most of the females with whom he dallied would have lifted their skirts for a good tupping in exchange for a mere wink and a smile, but she was quite another kind. Even now, her damned haunting kisses lingered, as if branded on his lips as well as his brain.

***

Cuper’s Gardens, or more frequently called Cupid’s Gardens, with its myriad arbors and walks, was an ideal location for a lovers’ tryst. Located at what once had been just a narrow strip of meadow surrounded by watercourses on the south side of the Thames, there were two approaches to the gardens, one through St. George’s Fields (best traversed in daylight) and the other by boat with the waterman tying up at Cuper’s Stairs.

Philip had come by way of the fields. By her stated rendezvous point, he knew she would arrive by water, but at a quarter past the appointed hour, she was nowhere in sight. The only passengers disembarking at the stairs were an elderly woman with her companion, a few married couples of the middling class, and a young woman in the dress of an upscale shopkeeper.

He looked impatiently upriver for another vessel, saw none, and consulted his timepiece with a frown. Piqued that she had played him for a fool, he turned to depart, but a husky feminine voice arrested him.

“Child! Do you not recognize me?” She had concealed her identity with a plain cotton gown and a chip bonnet, which might have passed for a better servant’s garb. She was devoid of powder or paint, and her hair simply coiffed. The effect, subtracting a decade from her age, was remarkably fresh and equally charming.

He endeavored to kiss her hand, but she demurred with a cheeky grin that displayed a previously elusive dimple. “I am incognito, don’t you know?” She executed a flirtatious curtsy for the benefit of passersby.

“Indeed you appear quite the pert lady’s maid.” He grinned. “But I fail to understand the subterfuge.”

“Do you not? I am already dubbed the Merry Widow Messingham by the Tatler, that cheap broadsheet, all because I attended that rout at Marylebone. How I was identified behind my domino, I’ll never know. I have been ever so careful, but I still risk complete social ostracism for engaging in any social activity. The less I am known in public, the better.”

“Hence the disguise.”

“Indeed! I couldn’t stand another moment trapped in a cage without any diversion. I’ve lived thusly for far too long, Philip. You have no idea what it’s like, and as a man, you likely never will. I envy you your liberty, you know.” The note of wistfulness in her voice was impossible to miss, as was the razor edge to his reply.

“My liberty? I think you harbor misapprehensions about my mode of life, madam. I live under a yoke as surely as you do. I have neither rank nor fortune, for which sin I am consigned to live on the outer fringe of good society.”

“But does that not afford you even greater independence? You are not forever under their watchful eyes. You may come and go wherever you choose, whenever it suits you, and with whatever company pleases you. You do not call that freedom?”

He paused to consider it. “In all truth, I have never viewed it in such a positive light, but rather have seen myself living in a kind of perdition between two worlds.”

“How do you mean, Philip?” She took his arm and they began to walk.

“Regardless of my sometimes diminished circumstances, I was raised the son of an earl and educated, at least for a time,” he injected wryly, “at one of England’s finest schools with the scions of peers. Even a younger son is afforded some advantages in coming from such a station, but now I have left that life entirely behind me.”

She digested his revelation with a frown. “You mentioned being a younger son the night we met, and I knew immediately by your speech and bearing that you were the son of a gentleman, mayhap a knight or baronet. But an earl’s son? I don’t understand…”

“Why I turned my back? It is a long and no doubt tedious tale. I would not presume to bore you with it.” Philip attempted to close the line of discussion.

She turned to face him with a searching look. “I would not find it dull in the least. I realize now just how little we know of one another. I would truly like to know why you reject a privileged life, one so many only dream of. I am at a loss to understand it.”

“That makes two of us!” Philip laughed, still wondering what devil had possessed him to inflame the earl’s passions and reject a comfortable future out of hand.

“You have regrets?”

“Daily, my lady. I have no possessions to speak of but what I win at the tables, and when fortune favors me after my brief periods of privation, I have a most unfortunate tendency to spend like the prodigal. Yet I love what I hate. It is a vicious cycle of feast and famine, leading me to extravagant binges followed perforce, more frequently than not, in seeking out the pawnbrokers on the Strand.”

“Forgive my ignorance, but what is a pawnbroker?”

“A vile creature who makes his living at the expense of desperate wretches.”

She frowned, dissatisfied with his explanation.

“A pawnbroker, if you must know, is a type of money lender, but rather than loaning solely at interest, he accepts an item of value as surety, and loans a fraction of its true worth, with the promise of repayment at an unconscionable rate of interest within a predetermined time. If the loan is repaid as agreed, the item is reclaimed by its owner.”

“And if not?”

“If not, it is permanently retained by the pawnbroker.”

“And this transaction is legal?”

“Perfectly. Pawnbrokers are brigands under the full protection of the law,” he said sardonically.

“You have had many dealings with such creatures?”

“Unfortunately so.” He spoke with contrition.

“If you have no possessions of value, what would you pawn?”

“The spoils of the gaming tables. Gold rings, silver watches, bejeweled snuff boxes. You would be surprised what men will wager when the fever is running high. I’ve even wagered the clothes off my back a time or two,” he confessed ruefully.

“You’ll get little pity from me, Philip. It is at least your choice to live as you do.”

“Do you not see the difficulty of such an existence?” he asked. “I was bred for a world in which I now have not the resources to sustain myself, but having become accustomed to the finer things, I can never be satisfied with less.”

She stared. It was as if he had spoken her own mind.

Oblivious to her reaction, Philip continued, “Until I obtain financial security, my life will never be truly my own. Yet my only way of achieving such security is to abandon my free will and pledge myself to follow another.”

The veracity of his words resonated loudly in her brain. “I identify with your plight more fully than you know, but you do have the choice. You could always swallow your pride and go back.”

“God no! I’d never give the ol’ bastard the satisfaction.” His vehemence took her aback.

She turned to face him. “But you just said you harbor regrets. What was the cause of such an irremediable rift with your family? Do you not at least continue relations with your siblings?”

“Sibling,” he corrected. “Only a half one at that,” he added with contempt. “To answer the second part of the question, I do not. Edmund and I grew up little more than strangers. We are separated by over a decade in age. He was already at school when I was born. What little rapport we might have developed was destroyed by his jealousy.”

“Jealousy of what?”

“I think it was my relationship with my mother, though I’ll never understand why. His own died shortly after giving birth to him. My mother was a warm and loving woman who tried her best to nurture him, but he hated her. He hated us both.”

“How very sad. Where is he now, your brother?”

“Edmund, Lord Uxeter, was in London last I knew, though we thankfully run in distinctly separate circles.”

“Lord Uxeter? I believe I have met him at Leicester House! He was among the most unctuous of Prince Frederick’s entire troupe of toad-eaters.”

“Madam, you have most aptly described my elder brother.” He laughed. “He would curry the prince’s favor. He maintains only a seat in the House of Commons for a rotten borough in Sussex, but has boundless ambition for advancement, whereas I have not the slightest interest.”

“Is this the core of it, then? Your desire to go your own way?”

“In part. Suffice to say my bridges are now naught but smoking embers. It’s a complicated morass, but enough of me.” He abruptly turned the subject. “You sneak away from your house in disguise. Is that not also rebellion against those who would rule you?”

Deciding not to press him further, she answered with an unconscious jut of her chin, “I suppose one might perceive it so, but I promised myself upon my return to London to explore all of its delights. I intend to do exactly that.”

“So you, like me, would thumb your nose at the lot of them.” He grinned roguishly.

“I’ll be discreet. ’Tis why we meet here, where the company is comprised of merchant cits, young attorney’s clerks, and Fleet Street sempstresses, rather than at the more fashionable Vauxhall. I have little risk of recognition here, and I trust you with my secret.”

His eyes glittered in a way she had not remarked before. “Perhaps your trust is misplaced.”

“Oh, I think not,” she said breezily.

“Then you do me too much honor.”

“And you may soon weary of that honor!” She tilted her head back with an impish grin that both charmed and disarmed him. “But for now, pray let us pay our shilling and walk the gardens.”

The acres of park comprising Cuper’s Gardens were once part of a notable resort that had fallen into disrepair until Boyd Cuper transformed the whole into a well-frequented and picturesque public pleasure garden. The walks also included some very good bowling greens. It was at one of these that the strolling couple stopped for a time to observe a group of boisterous youths playing at bowls. When Philip taunted the lads for throwing into the ditch, she goaded him into trying his own hand at the game. He eagerly doffed his coat while she looked on, chortling with delight.

Philip was newly enchanted, having never seen this side of her, so lighthearted and carefree. They passed a lazy afternoon in complete amity perambulating the secluded walks and impeccably manicured arbors. Their promenade ended along the river at the Feathers Tavern where they partook of tea and Mrs. Evans’s famed almond cheesecake al fresco at a table near the orchestra stage.

The Welshman Jones, the famed blind harper, played selections from Corelli and Handel.

While they sat in silent appreciation of the music, Lady Messingham studied him in mixed fascination and befuddlement.

No doubt, he cut a handsome figure with his deep-set, penetrating eyes, and strong, almost exotic-looking features, not to mention those sensuous lips, but it was more than a physical attraction she felt. Philip Drake was a fascinating man-child, with an experience of the world beyond his years coupled with an easy boyish charm. His physical appeal was impossible to deny, but it was becoming much more than that. It seemed with every hour they shared company the pull became stronger.

What was this hold he had suddenly taken on her? He was twenty years old, a mere youth for heaven’s sake. While she had first singled him out from amongst the Marylebone gamesters, believing his youth would make him easy to manipulate, to control, he had proven otherwise. She had yet to sway him fully to her purpose.

Only that morning she had reviewed her accounts with Allendale. Even after taking steps to economize, her debts continued to accrue. She still needed money, and Philip was in a unique position to help her—if he chose to do so. Perhaps it was time to try a more honest tack? This moment, following their frank discussion, seemed as good as any.

“Philip,” she began, “although I’ve immensely enjoyed our time together, I confess to have asked you here by design.”

“Indeed?” Instinctively, his inner guard came up.

“I need your help,” she said simply.

“Anything short of murder, my lady,” Philip answered.

She dismissed the remark with a laugh. “If only it were so easy. But it is nothing quite so ominous.”

“Then I am yours, body and soul, to command.”

She answered, matching his flirtatious banter, “Come now, what use would I have for your soul when your body should more than suffice?”

“Would it indeed?”

She felt a strong pull in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps she had encouraged this flirtation too far? It had been much too long since she had known a lover.

“Nothing so lurid,” she answered, deflecting the conversation away from the quicksand. “I only want you to teach me about gaming. I want to learn which games to play and how to play them. I want to win money.”

“Good God,” he exclaimed. “You left Belsize House only a few nights ago with over seventy pounds in your purse, enough to feed, clothe, and house an average family for a year! Have you spent it all so quickly? Has the fever taken to your blood?”

“You don’t understand.”

“I’ve lived this life for nearly five years, my lady; I understand only too well the danger you court.”

She flashed her most beguiling smile. “But with you by my side, someone I trust for protection, what possible harm can beset me?”

“I am confounded how I have inspired your faith,” he answered sardonically.

“Mayhap it is not so much what you have done as who you are,” she softly replied.

“What? A gamester? A scapegrace? A feckless ne’er-do-well?” He laughed mirthlessly. “Just who, or what, do you think I am?”

His retort took her aback. Though he carried a jaded, world-weary demeanor beyond his years, his youthful vulnerability surfaced at the most unpredictable times. While Philip guarded himself closely, in those brief moments of candor they’d shared when his defenses were down, she’d glimpsed pieces of the real man, or the one he secretly wanted to be.

“Not who you pretend to be, and far too much like another for whom I once cared deeply.” Her words were out before she realized and were not to be taken back.

It was the last thing Philip had expected to hear, but there was more. It shone in her eyes, and though evanescent, he had seen it. “An erstwhile lover?”

His black eyes probed too deeply for comfort. She ignored the question, instead turning her attention to the harper, who plucked the opening strands of a popular old ballad.

“Do you know this one?” she asked, anxious to break the mounting tension. “It’s an old favorite of mine.” In a dulcet contralto, she sang the first verse:

“’Twas down in Cupid’s Garden

For pleasure did I go,

To see the fairest flowers

That in that garden grow.

The first was the Jessamine,

The lily, pink and rose.”

Surprisingly, Philip broke in to finish the stanza.

“And surely she’s the fairest flower

That in that garden grows.”

“La, child! You do take the role of troubadour to heart!” Disconcerted, she plied levity as her weapon.

His hand moved to possess the hand that lightly rested on his arm. Once captured, he replied lowly, “The verse was apropos.”

Her bemused smile faded with the last notes of the harp. Her bantering tone sobered under his searching stare. “Between lovers, perhaps.”

He answered by drawing her hand to his lips and upturned her palm. The lingering kiss he planted there made her pulse throb acutely. She attempted to extract her hand, but he held it firm. His eyes never broke contact with hers as his lips traced a path to her wrist.

With a hammering heart, she followed his motions, mesmerized by the sensation of his warm mouth on her cool skin. When at last she broke the lengthy silence, her voice was husky. “I seek only gaiety, Philip. Not a lover.”

“Do you not? Then why are you here with me? What do you really want from me?”

She fixed her eyes above his left shoulder. “I told you. I desired the diversion of gaming and needed someone to teach me.”

“I think you deny what you truly desire.” He met her indignant stare with a look that sent tremors of desire to her very core.

Shocked by her own reaction, she pulled abruptly away. “You now presume to know my mind?”

He answered with a laugh. “What need have I to read your mind when it’s written all over your face?”

She visibly started. She had told herself she’d made that afternoon assignation to persuade him to accompany her to a gaming house, but deep down he was right. She longed to feel a lover’s caress, the passion of a lover’s kiss, and betrayed by this truth, she made to mask it with a lie. “I think you make far more of our time together than what it is. You are a charming and diverting companion. That is all.”

Philip’s mouth twitched. There it was again. Every time she allowed him closer, she would just as suddenly repel him away. He was devilish tired of this game she played. “Very well,” he replied, rising stiffly. “If those are your sentiments, our idyll is indeed at an end.”

They proceeded back toward the stairs with a perfunctory civility alien to them until then. She slanted a glance at his face, but his expression was inscrutable, and with every moment of the strained silence, she regretted more deeply the hostile ending of what had earlier been for her a blessed escape.

Her remorse grew as they ventured nearer the waterman. Turning to speak, to make amends, she found herself swept into a fervid embrace. He silenced her protest with his mouth.

Philip’s lips melded with hers, dragging over them in a possessive kiss. She willed herself not to answer him in kind, schooling herself to passivity, but all the while her body, quivering with outrage and suppressed passion in equal measure, begged to respond.

He paused for a breath, only to claim her again, but with a kiss nothing like the first. This kiss threatened to sweep away all of her resistance and lies. Tenderly he cupped her face, probing her lips with his tongue. With a moan, she parted for him and he entered her mouth, exploring her more deeply, transforming what had begun as almost an assault into a warm, languorous question. She responded fervently, each tangled stroke stripping away layers of her defenses, crumbling her walls. She clung to him now, powerless to demur.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, Philip broke the embrace.

Leaving her breathless.

Whirling.

Wanting.

He removed the trembling hands that clutched his lapel. “I thought perhaps you needed something to ponder.” Without a backward glance, he turned toward St. George’s Fields.

Dazed and unsettled, she realized the truth: all the while she had lied to him, she really only deceived herself.