Страница 60 из 75
She selected a dress of French figured muslin with long sleeves and a crossed bodice and a neckline that provided a hint of cleavage. Wilhelmina was proud of her figure, which did not, she believed, show the matronly sags and bulges one might expect from a woman her age. She might as well show Sam that she still had the makings of a desirable woman.
Or perhaps she was being foolish. Sam would never desire her again. She might be a duchess now, but there had been a time when her favors had been for sale. And that was something he would never be able to forget, or forgive.
Gi
Wilma Jepp, as she’d then been called, was the only daughter of the local blacksmith. Sam had lost his parents as a boy and had supported himself as a fisherman from the time he was about twelve. When he was sixteen, he’d suddenly shot up to a great height and become what Willie and the other local girls thought to be exceedingly handsome. But he’d only had eyes for Willie, the village beauty. They fell madly, wildly in love, as teenagers do, and talked of marrying one day when Sam had saved enough money to build a cottage.
Willie’s mother, a strict Methodist, had not approved of the impertinent young fisherman who lived by his wits and had nothing to recommend him. She had once caught Sam and Willie kissing, and had beaten Willie mercilessly for it. But that hadn’t stopped Willie’s youthful passion for the handsome young fisherman. When she was sixteen and Sam eighteen, they finally gave in to their desire one day and made love in a hayloft in her father’s barn.
A week later, he was gone.
Sam had not returned from fishing one day, and the next day his empty boat had washed ashore, damaged, with his gear still on board and a scrap of fabric caught on a nail. Everyone in the village assumed he’d had an accident in the boat and drowned.
Willie had been distraught with grief and ready to die, until she was befriended by a visiting London artist who was obsessed with her face and painted picture after picture of her. When her mother learned she was posing for a painter, she’d been livid, and eventually threw Willie out of the house. Some months later, having lost her love and her home and figuring she had nothing left to lose, Wilma Jepp had become Wilhelmina Grant and the artist’s mistress. Her face became her fortune, and soon she left the artist for another man’s protection, and then another, until she was courted by some of the highest men in the realm.
For five years she had cherished memories of the boy she had loved and lost, often dreaming of what might have been. But all those sentimental fantasies had been shattered in an instant when he’d walked into her box at the theater one night-alive, angry, and accusing.
Wilhelmina had been shocked to the core to see him. She had very nearly swooned, thinking at first she’d seen a ghost. Sam was then a midshipman in the Royal Navy, and she learned that he had been taken by a press gang back in ’89 when she thought he’d died. Though he claimed to have written her, she never received his letters. All that time he’d been alive and she’d never known.
And so Wilhelmina, by then a well-known demirep, had to face a furious Sam who didn’t understand why she had not waited for him. Even when she explained, he could not forgive her for the life she’d chosen to lead, for giving herself to other men. He had broken her heart when he’d walked away from her, shocked and angry and unwilling to forgive, and had taken a piece of that shattered heart with him. Five years after the wrenching pain of losing him, she lost him a second time.
Wilhelmina had never forgotten the boy she’d loved, and saw him a handful of times since that awful first reunion. Though she regretted having lost him, she could not turn back the clock. She had to live with the choices she’d made. And she’d done well for herself. She’d been with ambassadors and princes, generals and poets, even a prime minister. And her last protector, the Duke of Hertford, had loved her, and scandalized society when he married her.
All things considered, she’d had a wonderful life. A better life than she could ever have had if she’d stayed in Porthruan Cove. She had money and position, and now even a degree of respectability.
But she had sacrificed her first love for it, though she had not known so at the time.
Many years had passed, and she and Sam had mellowed with age. He no longer seemed to scorn her, and she no longer countered his scorn with arrogant condescension. They were mature adults who’d taken different paths but could perhaps meet in friendship, for old times’ sake.
Wilhelmina had hardly noticed the actions of Marsh, who’d removed her traveling clothes and dressed her in the French figured muslin dress with the deep vee neckline and the pretty rows of lace at the wrists and the hem. There was only a small dressing table mirror in the room, but it was enough to tell Wilhelmina that the dress flattered her, and she was satisfied. Her hair was still flattened from the bo
Wilhelmina nodded her approval as she studied her reflection in the mirror. She would be damned before she’d be caught in a matronly cap, which any right-minded woman of her age would don, and preferred to flaunt stylish coiffures instead. Not too youthful-there was nothing worse than a woman of a certain age trying to look like an ingénue-but fashionable and perhaps a bit dashing. Is that what Sam saw when he looked at her? An older woman with a bit of dash? Or an aging shell of the girl he’d once known?
“Shall I bring the jewel box?” Marsh asked, eyeing the deep neckline.
“Yes, please. The cameo necklace and earrings, I think.”
“Are you certain, Your Grace?”
Wilhelmina sighed. Marsh was right. She was trying too hard to impress Sam. “No, I suppose not. Something simpler.” She opted for a gold lyre-shaped pendant set with seed pearls, on a delicate gold chain, and plain gold hoop earrings.
She was ready. Or was she? Would she ever be ready to face his judgment of her? To stand before him without shame?
How foolish. Shame had never been a part of her nature. She had long ago ceased to regret the life she’d chosen. There was no going back, no reclaiming of i
But this time was different. Hertford had made her his duchess and given her back a modicum of respectability. Some high sticklers would never accept her completely; some doors would always be closed to her. But her rank and fortune opened most doors, and in a few of them she’d found good friends whose unwavering support and love had opened even more doors. When she’d married Hertford, Wilhelmina had determined to cast off her old life entirely, to become an asset to the duke rather than an embarrassment. For the seven years of her marriage and the four years of her widowhood, Wilhelmina had become as close to a pillar of society as was possible for a former courtesan. There was no need for shame and regret when facing Sam. She was able to face him proudly, finally, after all those years.