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Rees shook his head without looking up. “Cook and Cook alone determines when the household sits to a meal. Leke will fetch us when the food is ready.”

“That’s a very nice gown you’re wearing,” Helene told Miss McKenna.

Miss McKenna blinked. I suppose, Helene thought to herself triumphantly, she expected me to be outraged, and now she doesn’t know what to make of me.

“I think we should discuss Rees,” Helene added, without waiting for a response. The brandy was giving her a lovely warm feeling of confidence. “If it is quite all right with you, I would like to borrow him once a day.”

Tom was scolding his brother in an undertone. Helene heard him say, “Well, why didn’t you tell me that she never drinks spirits?”

“From what I remember, I only need around five minutes of Rees’s time,” she told Miss McKenna. “That truly is a lovely gown, by the way.” It was an odd color of orange that gave Lina’s skin a tawny glow.

“Sometimes Rees is good for seven minutes,” Miss McKenna said with just a hint of laughter in her voice. “I would give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Seven minutes!” Helene exclaimed. “How nice to know that one’s husband has matured a whole two minutes in the past nine years.”

“I like a man to have ambition, don’t you?” Miss McKenna said, taking a sip of wine.

Suddenly Helene’s eyes met those of her husband’s mistress and they broke into laughter. Tom made a gulping noise. Rees looked up from his paper for a moment and shrugged.

“It shouldn’t discompose your day at all,” Helene said.

“I doubt that it will,” Miss McKenna replied. “Your gown is also very lovely. Is it from Madame Rocque?”

“Indeed,” Helene said. She decided not to nod again because it made her head feel quite dizzy. “I think I may have tried on your gown, but I looked a veritable scarecrow in it.”

Miss McKenna’s eyes had lost the sharp edge they had when Helene first entered the room. Helene found that now that she was used to Miss McKenna’s startling beauty, she was taken aback by her composure. She was almost ladylike in her demeanor. If she hadn’t known to the contrary, Helene would have assumed she was a rather formidable, if young, member of the ton. How very peculiar.

“How is your mother, Lady Godwin?” Tom said.

“Oh, she’s very well,” Helene said, with just the tiniest, ladylike hiccup. “But you might as well call me Helene. I am your sister-in-law, and after this, no one can say that we’re not on intimate terms!”

Leke arrived at that moment. “Dinner is served,” he said, in a voice of deep gloom. He had rather enjoyed the martyrdom of remaining in Earl Godwin’s employ when the rest of the servants fled a house of sin. But even he was wondering whether this situation was too much for his sense of propriety. It just didn’t suit his nerves to find a mistress and a wife sitting next to each other and chatting, for all the world as if they were bosom friends.

Twenty

Inebriation Is Sometimes a Wise Choice

Helene sobered up slightly during the meal. But only slightly. At some point she realized that even another sip of red wine was going to leave her with a pounding headache in the morning, but she ignored the thought. Best to get through the evening, and let the morning worry about itself.

Rees sat at the top of the table, scowling at a score he had carried into the room. The conversation, such as it was, was carried by Lina, Tom, and Helene. After Leke had removed the pudding, even that chatter seemed to finally wilt. Helene took a deep breath and turned to Lina.

“If you will excuse us,” she said politely, “I shall return him in five minutes.”

“Please, take seven,” Lina said with a twinkle.

A little smile wobbled on Helene’s lips. Was it too, too odd to feel respect for her husband’s mistress?

“Rees!” she said, standing up.

He stuffed the paper into his pocket. “Right,” he replied. He showed no sign whatsoever of giving a damn about Lina’s and Helene’s remarks about the brevity of his bedroom activities.

But instead of heading up the stairs, he walked across the hall into the music room—well, the room that used to be their sitting room and was now occupied by three pianos.

“Rees,” Helene said, trailing after him, “what on earth are you doing?”

“I need to show you this score,” he said impatiently, running a hand through his hair. “We’ll get to the rest of it in a few minutes.”

“I would rather do the rest, as you put it, now,” Helene insisted. She certainly didn’t want to lose the little curtain of inebriation that was making the whole evening seem rather funny. And she particularly wanted to blunt the experience of bedding Rees, even if it was only a matter of seven minutes.