Once a Mistress

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

If I lose thy love, I lose my all

  Alexander Pope, 1688—1744

  A persistent tapping on the windowpane in the front door of the cottage woke her. Wren climbed out of bed and made her way to the main salon to answer the door. Her eyes were red and swollen and her throat raw from crying herself into a fitful sleep. Now, her head ached abominably and her temper was stretched to the breaking point at being awakened by the tapping that would not go away.

  “I’m coming,” she called, as she pushed her arms into the sleeves of her robe. She yanked the front door open as the clock on the mantel began the first of its four and a quarter chimes.

  “I’m gratified to hear it, my love.” Drew stood in the doorway holding Erin in his hand. “But I’m afraid it’s a bit premature, for I’ve only just arrived.”

  “What are you doing here, Drew?” she snapped. “For I’m in no mood to spar with you tonight.”

  “I have something that belongs to you.” He held the hedgehog up so she could see that Erin was wearing a blue ribbon tied around her neck.

  She reached for the animal, but Drew held Erin out of reach. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked.

  “Why should I?” she countered.

  “Because I love you. Because I can’t live without you. Because I want to marry you again and again and again—however many times it takes until you believe that I love you with all my heart. Until you forgive me for my momentary doubts. Until you learn to love me again.”

  Wren flung her arms around his neck.

  Drew held her tightly.

  Erin shrieked in protest and they both stepped back. “She brought you something.” He nodded toward the blue ribbon and Wren saw that her gold and sapphire wedding band was hanging from it.

  She slipped the ribbon over Erin’s head, then carefully deposited the hedgehog in her nest and clasped the ring to her heart. “Oh, Drew, I do love you. I’ve always loved you. I will always love you.”

  “And I love you,” he said simply. “Can you forgive me?”

  “I already have.”

  “Thank God,” he breathed. He pulled the blue ribbon out of Kathryn’s fist, untied the bow, and gently pushed the ring onto the ring finger of her left hand. He smiled down at her. “With this ring, I thee wed.”

  “And I you,” she whispered just before she pressed her lips against his. She unleashed a raw need in him as she used her tongue and teeth and mouth with a talent that shook him down to his boots, threatening to steal what remained of his breath along with his tenuous control.

  “I missed you,” he murmured against her lips. “More than I ever thought possible. Promise you’ll never leave me again.”

  “I promise.”

  “Even when I persist in behaving stupidly.”

  “Especially when you persist in behaving stupidly,” she said.

  “I intend to hold you to that.” Drew kissed her again, suddenly as hard as rock behind the buttons of his skintight trousers. His taut muscles and his rigid, insistent member stretched his control almost to the breaking point. His blood pounded in his head and every nerve in his body cried out for release, urging him to seek the hollow in the vee of her thighs, and press himself against her.

  Knowing that after another minute or two of kissing, he’d be unbuttoning his too-tight trousers and pressing into her instead of against her, Drew forced himself to regain some distance. He broke contact with her mouth and stepped away from her. “Kathryn.” He pulled the ribbon from the end of her braid and raked his fingers through it, freeing her thick blond hair. “Please, stop.”

  “But I like kissing you,” she murmured, burrowing inside the folds of his cape, seeking contact with his flesh. “It makes me feel safe and secure and wanted.”

  “I’m very pleased that you do, my love, but a man can only take so much and I’m seconds from tearing off our clothes and taking you on the floor.”

  “Then why don’t I get you started?” She shrugged out of her robe, let her cotton nightgown fall to the floor, and began unbuttoning his breeches. She shoved his buff breeches over his slim hips and buttocks, down his thighs. Drew splayed his feet as far as he could to keep from crashing to the floor like a fallen oak tree.

  “Boots!” Drew laughed. “Boots first, then trousers.”

  “Sit.” Wren pressed her palms against his chest and gently pushed him onto the sofa.

  He sat on the sofa and extended one booted foot.

  Wren bent and tugged off his boots, then grasped the hem of his trousers and pulled them off.

  Drew sat on the sofa wearing his coat, waistcoat, shirt, linen briefs and his white stockings. He leered at her and wiggled his toes. Wren burst out laughing.

  Crudely embroidered on his stockings in black thread were the words: My Kathryn has my love. To my heart she has the key. Never let there be a doubt, she’s the only wife for me. A heart, embroidered in red, punctuated each line of the poem.

  “I married a poet.” She giggled.

  “You married a fool who’s too bloody slow with the needle,” he grumbled. “I’d have been here much sooner, but it took me most of the night to fashion the embroidery.”

  “Tell me, my lord, do you wish to discuss your talents or experience mine?” Wren knelt between his knees, freed his hard length and favored him with a suggestive smile.

  “My talents are nothing compared to yours, milady.”

  “Then lie back and enjoy the experience.”

  Wren leaned forward and kissed him, using her tongue to tempt and tease him. Remembering the way he’d touched her, remembering the attention he’d lavished on her, Wren traced his velvety length with the tip of her tongue, then took him into her mouth and worked her own special brand of magic on him.

  Drew writhed beneath her tender ministrations. He tangled his fingers in her hair, arched his back, and bucked his hips in an effort to get closer. He groaned her name. Wren glanced up at him, recognized the look of intense pleasure on his face and smiled—a wicked smile that promised greater pleasure, just moments before she delivered it, applying her mouth and tongue and teeth to him with tenderness and love and extraordinary finesse.

  “Kathryn, please…” Balanced on the precipice between selfish desire and unselfish love, Drew’s control was tenuous at best. His voice shook with emotion as he struggled to form coherent thoughts.

  “You must stop.”

  Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Do you want me to stop?”

  “No!” he breathed. “God, no!”

  “Good.” She swirled her tongue around his velvety-soft head and flicked it across the sensitive flesh beneath it. “Because I don’t intend to stop.”

  “If… you… don’t…” He forced each word. “I… won’t… be… able… to…”

  Wren felt a tingle of awareness as she stared at him— the heady thrill of power that came with the knowledge that she had brought the most powerful man she’d ever known to a state of intense, writhing pleasure—the knowledge that she could harness his strength and use it against him in a way that was meant not to harm, but to heal him. Because that was what she wanted. She wanted to heal the fragile bond of trust. To restore his faith in his judgment and in himself. To show him beyond all doubt that he was safe with her, that he could trust her not to hurt him or think less of him because he was a very human man with very human flaws.

  Drew had asked for her forgiveness and in doing that, he had shown that he’d forgiven her for trying to protect him, for shouldering her burden alone when he was there to help lighten it, for not trusting, for not knowing, that if given a choice, he would have done the right thing—that he would have chosen her.

  And Ian.

  All the love in her heart shone in her eyes as she looked at him.

  “Kathryn…” Drew sounded her name as a frustrated groan and as a warning. He couldn’t wait any longer. He’d reached the limit of his endurance. “I… can’t… hold… on…”

  “Then let go,” she murmured. “I’ll catc
h you.” She swirled her tongue around him, surrounding him with love and warmth, catching him as he let go of his last ounce of pride.

  When he recovered his strength, Drew pulled her into his arms and lifted her onto his lap. He kissed her and Wren returned his kiss, following his lead as they played the age-old game of advance and retreat, of give and take, of mutual surrender. She followed his lead until he relinquished control and followed hers and then they played the game again, leading each other on a sensual path marked by kisses that were so hungry and hot and wet and deep that they begged for consummation.

  And Wren and Drew indulged that need, making love on the sofa throughout the long hours of night, making their way to the bed as dawn was breaking in the east.

  “Kathryn?” Drew whispered, as he tucked the covers around them.

  “Hmm?” She nuzzled the warm place beneath his right ear.

  “Join me at Swanslea for breakfast this morning.”

  Wren groaned. “Can’t we dine here?”

  “No, milady.” He brushed his lips against her brow. “I’d like to keep you to myself, but it’s time I introduced the new marchioness of Templeston to her guests.”

  “Will the St. Jacques be there?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  “What will you say to them?”

  “I’m going to tell them that we’re married and that Kit is my legal son and heir and that they have no claim to him.” Drew squeezed her. “I’m going to tell them everything I should have told them last night and I want you there to witness it.”

  And when I’ve done with the St. Jacques, he added silently, I’m going to make my feelings known to their son.

  Drew and Wren entered the mansion later that morning to find it in an uproar. Half a dozen guests were crowded into the marble foyer along with Miss Allerton, Martin Bell, Lord Canterbury, Newberry, Mrs. Tanglewood, several housemaids, Mr. Isley, Riley, and Jem. The fact that Isley, Riley, and Jem were in the main house instead of the parkland and the stables immediately alerted Drew to the fact that the crisis involved Kit.

  “What’s happened here?” he demanded.

  Ally rushed to meet them. “Lord Templeston! Wren! Please tell me Kit’s with you!”

  Wren paled. “He’s not.”

  “Oh, God!” The governess sagged and would have fallen if Drew and Newberry hadn’t taken hold of her arms to support her.

  “Have you tried the stable?” Drew asked.

  Ally looked up at Drew. “I took him to the stable to see Lancelot early this morning. He begged me for a ride and Mr. Riley and I gave him a lesson. I left him happily mucking the stalls with Jem, while I came back to arrange for his snack and a bath, but when I went back to get him, he was gone.”

  Drew turned to the stable boy. “Jem, did you see Kit leave the stable?”

  “No, sir.” Jem’s voice quivered with emotion. “He was helpin’ me clean stalls. I sent Kit for an armload of fresh straw while I emptied the pail ’cause he tries hard to help even though he’s too little to carry the heavy stuff. But he di’n’ come back. I thought Miss Ally had come and got him.” Jem wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I di’n’ mean to lose him, sir.”

  “You didn’t lose him, Jem,” Drew said. “Don’t worry. It isn’t your fault.”

  “But, sir, I shoulda watched him better. He’s such a little mite,” Jem protested.

  “We’ll find him,” Wren tried to reassure the stable boy. “Please don’t blame yourselves.” She gave Drew a meaningful glance.

  “Have you searched the house?”

  “We were in the process of doing so when you and Lady Templeston arrived, milord,” Newberry informed him.

  “Ask the guests to assemble in the ballroom,” Drew said. “Someone must have seen him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Three-quarters of an hour later, all of the guests remaining in residence at Swanslea Park were gathered in the ballroom. Wren was the first to notice that the two guests Drew had invited to breakfast were not in the ballroom.

  She turned to Newberry. “Please send someone up to Lord and Lady St. Jacque’s suite to ask them to join us in the ballroom.”

  “I went there, Miss—I mean, my lady—” the young housemaid Polly interjected as she bobbed a curtsey. “They weren’t in their rooms.”

  Drew was busy questioning the guests and the rest of the staff. Wren had to raise her voice to be heard. “Drew!”

  He turned to look at her.

  “Lord and Lady St. Jacque aren’t here.”

  Drew whirled around, searching the crowd until he caught sight of Riley. “Did any of our guests leave the estate this morning?”

  “On horseback or carriage, my lord?”

  “Both.” Drew made his way through the crowd and enfolded Kathryn in his arms.

  Riley scratched his head. “Three gentlemen and three ladies and two grooms rode out on horseback this morning, but they’re all here.” He pointed to the duke and duchess of Kerry, the archbishop of Canterbury, Lady Mumford and Martin Bell and Lady Seaborn. “The grooms are in the stable seeing to the horses. Miss Allerton thought that you and Lady Templeston might have ridden out as well, but I saw that Abelard and Felicity were in their stalls.”

  “Would that we had,” Drew muttered, “but my wife and I overslept.”

  Though she was frantic with worry over Kit, Wren’s heart felt as if it would overflow with love and tenderness for Drew. Most of the guests assembled in the ballroom were the cream of the London ton and he was taking every opportunity, making every effort to acknowledge her place in his heart and in his life.

  “Anyone else?”

  Riley nodded. “Lord and Lady St. Jacque ordered their coach brought around and readied just after dawn.”

  “Jem, was the coach there while you and Kit were cleaning stalls?” Wren asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you remember seeing it after Kit failed to return with the straw?” Drew asked.

  Jem shook his head. “I thought Kit might have been playing in it,” he said, “because he likes to climb up and down on the vehicles, but when I went to check, the carriage was gone.”

  “They’ve taken him,” Wren whispered. “Oh, Drew, they’ve taken my baby.”

  He lifted her chin with the tip of his finger and looked her in the eye. “But, my love, we know where they’ve taken him,” he reminded her. “We know who they’ve taken him to see.”

  Wren paled.

  “Julian.”

  Chapter Thirty-three