Chapter 9: The Social Whirl

The families need must get back to London before the start of the Season. How much before hadn’t quite been decided. Now, Anne’s condition was the main concern. She should have several days rest between the ride from Glassmere and the ride to London. The longer they delayed the trip, the harder on her it would be.

Anne, who was feeling remarkably healthy except for the mornings, enjoyed the attention. She was more certain of her condition every day, and Lionel was more attentive. The music for the harpsichord ln the music room included lullabies, and she learned them.

When she wanted to go riding, the groom told her that the horse they provided was the gentlest horse in the stable. She had never felt that adjective was a recommendation for a horse for her. On the other hand, it was probably wise to value that currently. When she mounted, Lionel helped her by putting his hands on her hips rather than on her waist. The ride was not above a walking pace, a new experience, but a pleasant one. They stopped in the woods for some long kisses.

When they got back, Charles suggested she had tied her bonnet at a different angle when she had put it back on.

“I suppose,” Mother said, “that Aphra is lonely in the schoolroom.” They had decided to separate Lenora’s two children though that meant that Aphra needed a governess separate from Walter’s wet nurse. “If you insist on being juvenile, Charles, we’ll send you to join her.”

“Well,” Charles said, “I am certain Miss Taylor would take very good care of me.” He desisted, though. Lenora threatened to take notes on how much attention James felt was proper from a husband towards a pregnant wife, and there was one subject on which her brothers did not tease her.

Anne and Lionel still sought privacy for serious kissing, but their excuses for that privacy no longer aroused comments from her brothers. Lionel took to kissing her hand, something that marriage normally quite reduced in frequency. Men who danced with their wives, and they tended to be few, kissed their hands after the dance just as they kissed the hands of other partners. Lionel kissed the back of her fingers when they parted for any reason and often when she joined him. He sometimes even kissed her palm before her family. That aroused quite erotic feelings, though she could hide them.

When the weather was fine, they might seek the orchard again. If Lionel no longer pulled her so tightly against him, his kisses were gentle and thorough. In the light of day, he did not kiss her belly, but he often stroked it in private. When the weather was wet or rain threatened, and rain could threaten for days before it decided to deliver, she would feel that her condition required a rest between the harpsichord and dinner. Her husband would walk her upstairs. The chair she had put in her old bedroom was moved to the new one. He would sit on it, and she would sit on his lap. Kisses there were even sweeter.

Lionel felt less shy about his attraction to Anne before her family than he had before his own. They saw him as her husband, her appurtenance, and what the husbandly appurtenance did was to bed his wife. Her brothers might tease her about it, but they all saw him as that. When he had her on his lap, and she expected to change clothes before appearing in public again, he didn’t confine his hand to the outside of her clothes

He stroked under her skirts and up her thighs while kissing her. They both suspended the kiss and her legs spread while he found his way into her briefs. Then she closed her legs to trap his arm and pulled his head into a deep kiss. While he stroked her warmth with his fingers, he kissed all over her face. When she stiffened in anticipation, he returned to her mouth. She writhed on his lap and gasped into his mouth.

“But you,” she sometimes said.

“I am thinking of tonight,” Lionel would reply then. She seemed to believe that he was always potent. In fact, he found making love every night put something of a strain on his resources. That, however, extended his times, which increased the enjoyment for both of them

He felt immersed in sensuality. The intensity of his own release was certainly part of it. So was his enjoyment of hers. But this was extending beyond even what he had enjoyed in Paris. This was his woman, a woman whom no other man had ever enjoyed and no other man would ever enjoy. She was, too, his woman in that he had taught her all these pleasures, and in that she was carrying his child. He had laughed with his friends at the men who had been shackled into marriage while they were free. But he was free now in a way that he’d never been while sharing these laughs. He had free right to a woman that they all wanted and that none of them would have.

Then, too, when he was not alone with Anne, he had the approval of all who saw him. Twice more, Stroud Hall hosted some parties of Herts gentry. Once, Stroud held a long weekend for greater families from further away. Each time, the announcement was made; each time the congratulations were sincere when the port and cigars went around after dinner. And the ubiquitous servants looked at him more warmly, too. He could be walking towards the music room while Anne was playing and some parlor maid would beam at him.

Joyce, who had only been in service to the family, had gone from scullion in the kitchen to chamber maid to parlor maid to personal maid to Lady Anne. She had been of two minds over the marriage, which took her out of the Hall and into a much inferior house but made her the personal maid to the lady of that house. Now, she had been the source of all the most important news to the people she had known for most of her life. The coming baby made her happy for Lady Anne, but it made her happy for herself and her new importance, too. As that was clearly Lord Lionel’s work, it improved her impression of him.

Stroud was as conscious as anyone else that Anne was playing more music lately. He wanted grandchildren, of course, but he wanted happy children even more. His children had not chosen the spouses he would have chosen for them, although he quite approved of the bright chit James had brought home. They had chosen the spouses whom they wanted, though, and they seemed pleased with their choices. If Lionel made Anne happy, he would give him the benefit of the doubt. He was certainly a good looking man, and in another decade he would be handsome. At present, Stroud would call him pretty.

Lady Minerva, Marchioness Stroud, was in favor of babies. Since she had stopped producing her own, she felt her daughters and daughter-in-law should keep the supply up. Anne was doing so, right on schedule. Then, too, Lionel Grant was the younger brother of a quite inconsequential earl. He had only a London house. She had great hopes that he would see the advantages of raising his children in the countryside, and Hertford was a much shorter trip from London than Suffolk. Standish had been inflexible, and Deborah had agreed with him. Well, Lenora had been amenable, and her two children would stay here when she returned to London. And, after all, if Anne didn’t bring her baby to Stroud Hall, she would be in London for the season, and she would visit Anne then.

When one dry day looked like it would be followed by another, the return trek to London was announced. The luggage cart was loaded, and dogs were tied around it to discourage any night visitors. They would leave right after breakfast. Being Tarletons and decisive, they did. Anne dispatched Samuel to the servants’ carriage at the beginning, and Joyce at the first stop. The rest of the trip was spent with Lionel’s arm around her. They arrived at Darrow House while the sky was still light, although the sun had long sunk behind the buildings.

After the family said their good byes, Lionel and Anne greeted their own servants and ate the meal that they had brought with them. They paused in one sitting room while Anne looked around.

Lionel asked, “What are you considering, M’dear?”

“Which chair I should have brought up to my room tomorrow.”

“Your room, do you think?”

“Well, yes,” Anne said. “I am a staid matron now, and expect to be a mother. I think my visits to your room are the habit of an excited newlywed.”

“So, I can’t expect a nymph to steal into my room?”

“No, you will have to visit mine to see what surprises are in store.” He laughed, they kissed down there, and they went up. At her dressing room door, he kissed her hand quite formally. Then he turned it over and licked her palm.

When he had dismissed Samuel and came through his bedroom to hers, he found her covered to her neck by the sheet. When he lifted the sheet, he found that was all that had been covering her. He kissed her sweet breasts, stroked all of her. He was in process of stroking her to greater arousal when she reached for him. When he entered, she was wet and warm. He kissed her while stroking deep within, and she gasped into his mouth when she clenched around him. He broke away from her mouth to hold himself up on straight arms while he drove in and out through those sweet clenches. Only after he had fallen on her did he remember that he should not. As soon as possible, he rolled off and brought her to his side.

“You are wonderful,” he said.

“I am yours. I responded to what you did, responded to what you have taught me.”

“Yes. Mine.” And with that thought, he held her tight -- although by the shoulder not by the belly -- until he fell asleep.

He left her in the morning because she disliked for him to see her be sick. He breakfasted without her. He thought about what a wonderful wife Anne was and about how they were going to be a family. Anne was happy, if not at quite that moment, and that made him happy. Anne’s happiness in Stroud Hall had been shown by her playing. Really, she should have a harpsichord here. They could afford it; the budget was not their master. Truly, though, they had set up their budgets separately. For a harpsichord to be a gift from him, it would have to be purchased out of his budget. Well, if he did, she would be very happy, and a very happy Anne was worth waiting to see.

When she came down later and had had her tea and toast, they discussed their household and their life in the ton. They were totally free. The servants had been mostly hired by his mother and his brother before he had inherited the house, but they must serve the two of them or be let go.

He and Anne would not be among the leaders of the ton, but they did not need to be. When what the ton expected was not onerous, they would provide it. If it became onerous, they would ignore those opinions. Darrow House was not the most fashionably decorated or located house in London, but it had been inherited. That put them above arrivistes.

Anne left that conversation to write letters to Mother and to Lenora. She asked for their household food budgets when in London, and how many servants that fed. She knew how many family. She assumed that Cook took a little off the top, and she didn’t mind that. She didn’t want her taking more off the top than was reasonable because she served a mistress with no experience.

She would clearly need some new gowns for the Season. It was not only the styles which had changed; it was her waist that would change. Other women had solved that problem -- she added a postscript to her letter to Lenora asking for the reference to a seamstress who could handle both fashion and pregnancy.

If she were to be both wife and mistress to her husband, she would be a damned good wife first. (She would be a damned good mistress, too, and she was working on that.)

She required that all the hearths be swept and polished until the stones glistened. Then the fires should be set, but not lighted. The blankets should be washed and hung outside. When they were completely dry, they could be stored in the family’s bedrooms, ready for use.

Lionel belonged to three clubs, and found himself spending less time in any of them. He resigned from two of them. White’s which was the most expensive and most exclusive of the three, he retained. He took a day visiting vintners and found one that sold labels he recognized with a slightly lower price. The first sunny afternoon, he took Anne riding. They kept to a more sedate pace than Anne’s wont, and Jitter acted puzzled by that.

“Riding is still pleasant,” she said. “Come Spring, I’ll take him out somewhere beyond the town limits and give him his head.”

While London was not yet full, the fine weather -- and lack of other entertainment before the start of the Season -- had brought out a good many other riders and carriages. They received many greetings. Anne and Lionel might not be the shining stars of the ton that the Dorwich’s were; they might not be the notables that the Strouds were. They were, nevertheless, worth knowing. Last Season’s debutantes and brides were especially friendly toward Anne. Lionel wryly suspected it was gratitude for having settled on him. Some of that number were more evidently pregnant than Anne was.

“Well met!” cried a female voice from a distance. The woman trotted up to them at a pace that was dangerous in the crowd. A man came riding after.

“Anne,” Deborah said when she had come close and stopped her horse abruptly. “You look marvelous, and that riding habit still fits. Lord Lionel, you know Brian.”

“Of course. I was not that dazed during the wedding reception. Standish.”

“Congratulations,” said Earl Standish. “I hope she is not going to propose a race to Deborah.”

“No,” Anne said, “Lionel married the sane one. Not for much longer, Deborah. I’m due in the spring.”

“Well, he had to, didn’t he?” Deborah, Countess Standish, asked. “I was already taken. Seriously, though, you are looking well, marvelously well. One of them is obviously good for you.”

“Both of them, I think. Except the mornings.”

“There is that,” said the mother of four. “Still, you are one of the happy ones. I’ve seen women drag for the nine months and then for three months after.”

Anne had a voice that could carry easily, although not as easily as Deborah’s. They were the center of attention for a dozen carriages and twice that many riders.

When Deborah rode off toward a clear space, one of the riders came up to Lionel. It was a lad he had known in Cambridge.

“Well, Lord Lionel,” he said, “apparently you have good news.”

“Yes. We were thinking of a notice in the Times, but we decided that telling Lady Standish was faster. Lord David, do you know my wife?”

“Only by sight.”

“Lord David Llewes. Lady Anne Tarleton Grant.”

They both expressed pleasure, and David congratulated them. They were subject to more greetings as they proceeded. The ride home was silent, but not, he thought, unpleasant. After dinner, Anne was in her chair still clad in her nightgown when he got to her room.

“Deborah said I wasn’t showing yet.”

“Well, in that riding habit,” he said, “you were not.”

She swept off the nightgown. “Look closely now.” When he did, he could certainly see a greater roundness.

“I can see it, but I know your body quite well. It makes you look even more attractive.”

“More attractive?” she asked. “I am going to be huge.”

He took off his own nightshirt, if less dramatically than she had taken off her nightgown. “Can’t you see how attracted I am? This part cannot lie.” And that part, quite soon, was rewarded for its testimony.

As the Season started, the Grants had a new relationship to the ton, and they felt their way within it. They were invited to dinners chez Dorwich, where they met the elite of those married within the decade. Their other family relationships inserted them into other circles. Deborah invited them, and they almost never met anyone at a Standish dinner that they had met at a Dorwich dinner. They attended balls, but they were quite conscious that the already-married without debutante daughters were not the center of balls.

Anne, however, sympathized with the new debutantes at the Barhill-House ball. This wasn’t the most fashionable ball this night, and some of them felt rejected already.

“After all,” she told several, “I met my husband here. Not really my husband, then, of course, nor really here. I met the man whom I later married at last year’s Barhill-House ball. So go down, wear a bright smile, and dance with the ones who ask. You might meet your future husband tonight; you might meet him at the next ball or a much later one. He might be here tonight and you never get to dance until a much later ball. My brother’s wife told me that I was going out in a thunder storm hoping to be hit by lightning. And, so are you all. Meanwhile, enjoy the thunderstorm.” Anne’s voice carried naturally, and she didn’t think this advice needed to be kept confidential -- quite the opposite, really. Other maidens were listening, and some of them drew nearer. “Enjoy the dances. I shall enjoy the dancing, and I have no hopes for any progress beyond the dance. Dancing is a pleasure. Dancing with a partner who takes pleasure in the dance is a greater pleasure. They talk about you; don’t you talk about them? Do what you can on the dance floor to make what they say about you pleasant.”

“It is easy for you to talk,” one of the chits said. “You are a Tarleton.”

“I am a Tarleton, which means that I am taller than half your beaux. A year ago, I was nervous about what might happen. Well, what happened was marriage. And, let me tell you, marriage is something that deserves the nervousness.” But, her audience was too worried about entering the next year unwed to worry about entering the rest of their lives wed.

Lionel waited near the staircase for his wife’s descent. In truth, he was a little nervous over her falling.

Anne, who had spent several years a decade before getting out of higher and higher forks of trees, had no fear of heights, let alone fear of stairs. Increasing or no, she would have raced Lionel down the stairs if he had cared to wager a farthing.

Lionel held back from the clusters awaiting the maidens. If the mama wasn’t asked, he sometimes stepped in. Then a shy maiden with the longest face he had ever seen came down the stairs. She was nearly his height, and nobody asked for a dance from her. What that would have done to Sophia, he could imagine.

He walked up to the mama. “Madame, I am Lionel Grant. Pardon me for the intrusion, but I take our mutual acceptance of our host’s invitation as the equivalent of an introduction.”

“Quite right. I’m Hortensia, dowager Viscountess Carlton.”

“How do you do Lady Hortensia. Might you present me to the young lady?”

“Mr. Grant, or is it Lord Lionel, may I present my daughter, Vivian?”

“How do you do Lady Vivian? As your mother guessed, I am the son of the late Earl of Fenhurst and the brother of the current holder of that title.”

“How do you do, Lord Lionel?”

“Lady Vivian, might I have the honor of the fourth dance with you? I had already engaged for the first three before I saw your beauty.”

“I would be pleased.”

As it turned out, the fourth dance was a quadrille, and Vivian moved with verve. Midway though the dance, being twirled by Sir Richard Davis, a tall baronet widower, a smile transformed her features. The transformation was so great that Sir Richard asked her for a later dance.