“Given the funds and attention he lavished on her, you’d think she would have been content,” Montclare observed. “Yet what must she do two years ago but coax Bellingham to live openly with her! There had long been enmity between Bellingham and his wife, but he owed his family better than so humiliating and public a slight.”
“Can’t expect a creature like Belle to know or care about proper conduct,” Higgins responded. “Besides, we’ve all felt the force that kept Bellingham with her so many years.” With a lascivious look, he added, “You’ve heard about that interlude in Vauxhall, haven’t you?”
At that moment, the waiter arrived with their orders, halting the conversation and giving Jack time to reflect.
Though he knew better than to put much credence in common gossip, he’d felt an irrational disappointment in having his supposition of Belle’s expensive, grasping nature confirmed by Farnsworth. Ansley’s spirited defense of her had inexplicably lightened his heart. Though he was an idiot to expend any emotion on a woman who would never be more to him than a dazzling, seldom-glimpsed stranger.
Before he’d finished berating himself for a fool, his attention was drawn to an approaching figure and he jumped up with a smile. “Edmund! How good to see you!”
Edmund, Lord Darnley, one of Jack’s closest friends from Eton and Oxford, reached out to clasp his hand. “Jack. Praise God, it’s good to have you home.”
“Ah, Darnley, what a magnificent match you missed this morning!” Montclare said. “After actually disarming Armaldi—hard to imagine anyone accomplishing that feat, I know—Belle had poor Wexley facedown on the floor before a cat could lick its ear. Where were you, by the by?”
“While the rest of you fribbles may have nothing better to do than hang about watching Wexley create the newest on-dit, some of us actually work,” Darnley said with a grin, taking the chair Aubrey fetched for him.
“Work—bah!” Higgins dismissed Edmund’s reply with a disdainful wave. “Ever since Lord Riverton appointed him as Cabinet assistant, he’s been promenading about as if he were as crucial to the government as Wellington.”
“The envy of the indolent and incompetent,” Edmund said with a drawl, winking at Jack.
“Never mind Darnley’s baiting,” Farnsworth said. “You were about to tell us about Lady Belle and Vauxhall?”
His quarrel forgotten, Higgins’s eyes took on a prurient gleam. “Ah, yes! I’ll never forget it, though ’twas nearly four years ago. A group of us went to the gardens and spied Bellingham with Belle and some friends, all well in their cups. Belle was sporting a gown fashioned from some sheer material, the bodice so low cut it revealed nearly the whole of those delicious breasts. Indeed,” he continued, his voice thickening, “Bellingham said he would rather savor her, for her plump, pebbled strawberries were sweeter than any Vauxhall had to offer.”
By now, Jack’s entire group—and all the gentlemen sitting within earshot of it—had fallen silent, giving Higgins their undivided attention.
Seeming pleased by his large audience, Higgins continued, “Bellingham leaned over to Belle, and with men and woman of all stations in booths but a few yards away, started suckling her tits—right through her gown!”
After a chorus of indrawn breaths and assorted exclamations, Higgins continued. “When he finished, the bodice was entirely transparent—leaving those strawberries clearly visible for us all to feast our eyes upon—and, ah, how worthy they were of feasting! Before we could look our fill—though I doubt one ever could—Belle suggested a stroll. I felt sure Bellingham would hustle her down one of the dark walks and finish what he’d started, but he invited a group of us to accompany him. Hardly able to imagine what might transpire next, we accepted.”
Though shocked by the idea of so intimate an act being performed in public, within view of decent men and women, Jack was ashamed to admit that he was as titillated as he was revolted. An honorable man, he told himself sternly, would walk away, leaving the rest of Higgins’s ribald story unheard. Jack tried to tell himself to do just that—but his legs didn’t seem to be obeying his brain.
“Bellingham did head for one of the darker paths,” Higgins was continuing, “announcing that he felt the need to dispense with some of the wine he’d drunk. That business concluded, instead of sheathing his standard—its condition already, as you can imagine, at better than half-mast—he bade Belle walk on with him. Advising her to hang on to something firm, he wrapped her hand around his shaft and set off—her fingers caressing him at every step.”
While Higgins paused to take a sip, the entire company sat in a breath-suspended hush. Get up now, Jack instructed. His limbs continued to defy him.
Gaze abstracted, as if focused on the memories he was describing, Higgins resumed, “By the time we reached his carriage, Bellingham wasn’t the only one gasping for breath. The moment the footman opened the door, Bellingham hustled her back against the squabs—and with all of us, including the footman, still looking on, yanked her skirts up to her waist and thrust her legs apart. Such a vision of creamy white thighs and sweet nether lips in a nest of golden curls, I shall never forget! Then Bellingham lifted her breasts out of that excuse of a bodice and mounted her. The footman, too shocked to move, I suppose, never closed the carriage door, so we saw the whole. Belle’s eyes glassy and her mouth open as Bellingham pounded into her—those luscious naked breasts bouncing, barely a handspan away…I must admit, the footman wasn’t the only onlooker who discharged his weapon that night!” Higgins exhaled heavily. “’Twas the most erotic experience of my life.”
In the midst of the groans, sighs and ribald comments, Jack heard young Ansley mutter, “I don’t believe it.”
Though with the cynicism of age, he realized that the broad outlines, if not the coarse details, of Higgins’s tale were probably true, he found himself sympathizing with the infatuated youth’s disinclination to accept that the beautiful creature he obviously worshiped could have been involved in so crude and carnal an episode. Before Jack could decide whether he was more disgusted with Higgins for telling the tale or himself for listening to it, another man entered the room.
“Ah—Lord Rupert!” Higgins exclaimed, gesturing to the newcomer. “Another spellbound witness to the extraordinary events I’ve just described. Indeed, my lord was so enraptured by the, ah, sights and sounds that evening, he has been mad for the wench ever since, eh, Wendell?”
Ignoring him, Lord Rupert walked calmly onward. Turning back to the group, Higgins continued, “Bellingham removed her from town for a time immediately afterward, some alleged because he feared Rupert would try to bribe her away from him. Though, given the sums you’re reputed to have offered and had turned down,” Higgins said, addressing the baron, “it don’t seem she favors you.”
“If Bellingham were still alive,” Rupert said, fixing a chilly silver-eyed gaze on Higgins, “you wouldn’t have dared recite that story, you miserable muckworm. You, I, the others—we all swore to remain silent.”
Higgins’s face colored. “B-but that was only—”
“I think, in honor of his memory, I should take care of you for him,” Rupert interrupted, giving Higgins a thin smile. “Perhaps it might be…healthier if you left town. Now.”
Under Rupert’s unnerving scrutiny, Higgins turned pale, then red again. After a moment’s hesitation, while Rupert continued staring silently at him, Higgins rose and walked out.
“As for the lovely Lady Belle,” Rupert continued, his voice calm as if nothing unusual had transpired, “I have every expectation of her eventually accepting my carte blanche. Make no mistake—sooner or later, that lady will be mine.”
“She is not, however, yours yet,” Ansley reminded doggedly. “Any one of us has the right to approach her.”
“Anyone?” Rupert