Wife Errant Read Free Page A

mirror and arranged it on her head.
    Tess’s first reaction was pleasure that for once she had chosen something that pleased her mama. Her instinct was to hand the bonnet over, but a second thought told her this was the behavior of a martyr. “Don’t you think pink just a trifle lively for an older lady, Mama?”
    Her mother blinked in astonishment. The greater crime was not refusing to hand over the bonnet, but using the word “older.”Mrs. Marchant was accustomed to being taken for Tess’s sister. Tess took the bonnet and left, with an awful feeling of betrayal in her breast.
    “What ails that girl?”Mrs. Marchant complained to Dulcie. “I swear she becomes more selfish by the day. Older lady indeed! Where did she buy the bonnet?”
    “At Madame Jardin’s, on Milsom Street, Mama.”
    “I shall dash out this afternoon. Bother! We have the coiffeur coming. Get the fashion magazines, Dulcie, and let us choose our new hairstyles.”
    After lunch, Tess put on her new bonnet to call on Lady Revel, but it was Lord Revel’s admiration she was looking for. He was the reigning buck of the county at home. She never had any hope—or even any wish—of attaching such a high flyer. In fact she heartily disapproved of his life-style, but like any maiden, she wanted to look her best in front of him.
    The Revels were staying in an absent relative’s house on the elegant Royal Crescent. The Marchants had hired a smaller house on Bartlett Street, midway between their two most favored destinations, the Assembly Rooms and Milsom Street. As she was driven along, Tess had ample opportunity to admire the Palladian architecture of the famous Woods, père and fils, who had done much of the building in Bath. The town spread out below her in tiers of terraces, squares, and crescents, the whole bound around by the Avon.
    Lady Revel held no real terrors for Tess. Despite her title and wealth, she was a plain-looking and plain-spoken country lady. She had lost any interest in her appearance after she had nabbed a husband. Her hair had silvered, and her pale cheeks were always innocent of rouge. It was unlikely that she would be out, or that she would be entertaining company. She came annually to Bath for the waters, declaring, “Anything that tastes this wretched has to be good for you.”Her complaint was rheumatism, which used to bite at her elbows and neck, but had unaccountably flown to her ankles and toes this year.
    Tess found the dame alone before a blazing grate, in a faded gown of blue serge, reading a novel by Fanny Burney and sipping tea.
    “Tess!”she exclaimed. “Aren’t you the Good Samaritan, to visit an old ruin like me. Come and tell me all the on-dits. Anthony never tells me anything. Nothing he does is fit to tell, I wager. I daresay he has a new dasher. Have you heard anything about her?”
    Tess took up her seat on the sofa and was handed a cup of tea. “Thank you. No, indeed, Lady Revel. I have not heard he has a ladybird under his protection.”
    “I don’t know that he has, but Figgs tells me he has broken up with his latest one. She was a widow called Esmée, whom, James tells me, is accepted in the less distinguished homes. James would know about less distinguished homes,”she added acidly. “A Flanders mare, in other words. I never trust a woman who calls herself Esmée. It has a whiff of the theater. I wager she was an actress. Lightskirts ought not to make claims to respectability. I much prefer a simple trollop to onewho puts on airs.”
    “Esmée! You cannot mean Mrs. Gardener!”
    “Why, yes, I believe that was the name. Why do you stare, child? Is she a gazetted horror? Is she likely to burden us with a paternity suit, or publish her memoirs?”
    “Esmée Gardener is the woman Papa—”
    “You never mean it!”the countess exclaimed, clapping her knee in derision. “I had not heard your papa was on the prowl again. The female has catholic tastes. Good God! I wonder if Anthony knows this. How