Temporary Mistress

by Susan Johnson

  4. Beau Brummell was a favorite of the Prince of Wales’s from 1794 until 1813. His reputation was founded upon his preoccupation with dress and his wit. The cut of his clothes, the fit of his gloves, and the shine of his boots were exquisite. The secret of good grooming, he said, was “no perfumes, but very fine linen, plenty of it and country washing.” His major influence in male fashion was the introduction of two innovations: starched neckcloths and Hessian boots. With the Hessians came pantaloons—tight-fitting leggings—and before long, trousers were replacing knee breeches. Brummell had managed to discourage the excess of silk and satin, gold lace and multicolored embroidery so beloved of the Prince of Wales and his friends. The Prince and Brummell may have shared the same tailors—Schweitzer and Davison, Weston and Meyer—but only one of them was setting the fashion—Brummell. The Beau was also responsible for introducing the left-hand-only style of opening a snuffbox.

  Although the Prince and Brummell had been drifting apart for some time, July 1813 saw the final breach between them. Brummell and three of his dandy friends gave a ball at the Argyle Rooms and deliberately omitted the Prince Regent from their guest list. But when the Regent wrote to announce he would attend, they were forced to send him an invitation.

  On the evening of the ball, the Regent was met at the door by the four hosts. Bowing to Pierrepoint on one side, the Prince turned to the next host, saw Brummell, and ignored him. The shocked silence was broken by Brummell’s casual drawl: “Ah, Alvanley, who is your fat friend?”

  Brummell and the Regent never spoke again.

  In 1815, Brummell was forced to flee his debtors in England. He died at Calais in 1840.

  5. I’m always fascinated by the ingenious plumbing incorporated into some of the grand residences, at a time when indoor plumbing wasn’t universally available. But water provision was in the hands of numerous private companies and had been as early as 1581, when waterwheels were pumping Thames water to parts of the City. At the end of the seventeenth century, the use of steam for power was made effective by Thomas Savery. In 1712, a pump worked by a Savery engine was installed at Campden House in Kensington. It could raise three thousand gallons an hour up fifty-eight feet to a cistern at the top of the house. In 1723, the Chelsea Waterworks Company was incorporated “for the better supplying in the City and Liberties of Westminister and parts adjacent with water.” The company was responsible for introducing the first iron main in London in 1746, and by 1767, with the widespread use of steam pumps, 1,750 tons of water were pumped daily. By the time Celia Fiennes was touring England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, water was being supplied for indoor fountains, baths, and water closets.

  6. Isabella, Marchioness of Hertford, was an ambitious woman. Born two years before the Prince of Wales, the daughter of the ninth Viscount Irvine, she became the marquess’s second wife when she was just sixteen. Eighteen years her husband’s junior, she was tall, handsome, and elegant—though a little portly. I’ve dated their relationship earlier for the purposes of the story, but she and the Prince didn’t become involved until 1807. So why did the Prince replace one aged companion (Mrs. Fitzherbert was now fifty-one) with another almost as old (Lady Hertford was forty-seven)? Lady Bessborough’s suspicion that the Prince was suffering from boredom—“alas! No cure—the disease is fatal” was probably correct. Lady Hertford was intelligent and worldly enough to both stimulate him mentally and satisfy him emotionally. Their liaison lasted ten years.

  7. I’m always intrigued when I come upon some rare note on female sexual amusements. While thousands of volumes have been written on male sexual diversions, women have not been as well documented—although certainly there is historical evidence of female sexual assertiveness (i.e., to cite only a few—Cleopatra, Empress Theodora, Heloise, Diane de Poitiers, and my all-time favorite, Catherine the Great of Russia). So in the interests of scholarship, the handsome young male shop assistants of Bond Street can be added as further proof that females have always found pleasant ways to entertain themselves. According to Malcolm (Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London During the Eighteenth Century, 1810), “as early as 1765 came the demand for strong, good-looking young men to serve in the ladies’ fashion shops, who would create a market through the impression made by their personalities on the world of prominent ladies, and many scandals arose even in those days from this custom.” At the end of the century Boettiger (London and Paris, 1799) says: “As the female population of this town is not devoid of feeling for a handsome male form and fresh red cheeks, the cunning Bondstreeters look out for well-built, personable and promising shop assistants with whom a lascivious lady might very well care to exchange a couple of dozen more words than is warranted by her business.”

  8. Since dueling was illegal, a closed carriage was often used to drive to the dueling rendezvous so the occupants wouldn’t be recognized.

  9. The dire consequences of an error in loading a pistol is emphasized by Abraham Bosquett in this grim warning from The Duel by Robert Baldick:

  “It has been known, that by injudiciously overloading, the Principal has been killed by his own pistol bursting, a part of the barrel having entered the temple; and it has frequently happened, through the same cause, that the pistol-hand has been shattered to pieces. I was present on an occasion when the Principal shot his own Second through the cheek, knocking in one of his double teeth, not by the ball, but by a part of the pistol barrel, that was blown out near the muzzle. I was also on the ground when a Principal shot himself through his foot, at the instep, which nearly cost him his life, but put an end to farther proceedings at the moment; his Second had given him his pistol at full cock, with a hair trigger, which he held dangling at his side, before the word was given, and in that position it went off. On another occasion the Second had charged his friend’s pistol so carelessly, that the ball and powder had fallen out before he presented; when, but not till after receiving the opposite fire, snapping, and burning prime (the matter being then accommodated), he discovered, on making several attempts to discharge his pistol in the air, that it was unloaded.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SUSAN JOHNSON, award-winning author of nationally bestselling novels, lives in the country near North Branch, Minnesota. A former art historian, she considers the life of a writer the best of all possible worlds.

  Researching her novels takes her to past and distant places, and bringing characters to life allows her imagination full rein, while the creative process offers occasional fascinating glimpses into the complicated machinery of the mind.

  But perhaps most important … writing stories is fun.

  And here’s an excerpt from

  BLONDE HEAT

  the tantalizing novel of passion from

  SUSAN JOHNSON

  available wherever

  Bantam Books are sold

  When Lily, Serena, and Ceci return to the small lakeside town of Ely, the three best friends are going to take the town by storm in the hottest summer of their lives …

  Once Billy walked out of the bar with the black-haired bitch, as Lily silently referred to his partner, she found it easier to enjoy the rest of the evening. His disappearance resolved her dilemma—should she, shouldn’t she, would she hate herself in the morning if she did? It turned into a beautiful, hot, sweaty night of dancing, which she loved. The band was prime, she adored dancing, she had no dearth of partners, including Ceci, whom she’d danced with since the sixth grade. They were actually damned good.

  Serena and Frankie left early. Surprise, surprise. But it was nice to see Serena so happy.

  After turning down various offers to extend the evening, Lily and Ceci drove home alone.

  “Is it just me or do you have to feel the heat before you sleep with someone?” Lily asked as they turned out of the saloon parking lot.

  “Same here. Lust first, then friendship. That’s my motto.”

  “There’s definitely degrees of lust, though.” Lily sighed.

&
nbsp; “He talked about you,” Ceci said, the reason for Lily’s sigh patently clear.

  “But he went home with the black-haired bitch.”

  “It was a without-risk, try-to-forget-the-woman-you-want fuck. He would have preferred you, but didn’t want to pay the price.”

  “That’s not particularly consoling.”

  “But true. He wants you bad.”

  Even while she told herself she shouldn’t care, even while she understood how useless the feeling was, Lily felt a warm rush of pleasure.

  Lily was home twenty minutes later, still wired after hours of dancing. Taking off her clothes, she put on a robe, poured herself a Coke from the refrigerator, opened and shut the bag from the Chocolate Moose with the almond-paste bear claw three times before she decided she’d burned off enough calories on the dance floor to warrant a tiny little bite.

  Three minutes later the bear claw was gone.

  She’d eat only raw vegetables tomorrow, she promised herself, and then in some totally unknown fashion, the freezer door was open, she was standing in the glare of the freezer light, and the Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia container was looking lonely all by itself.

  She’d eat only a very few raw vegetables tomorrow, she thought, reaching for it.

  Scooping up the first spoonful—the one with the large chocolate chunk—she mentally considered eating just down an inch, reassuring herself that calculating the number of fat grams and calories listed in a portion size when divided by the very few spoonfuls she would consume would amount to only a nominal number of calories. And a certain amount of fat was actually required in a diet or one could die of beriberi or some similar, odd disease of malnutrition.

  She was shocked when she saw the bottom of the container.

  Tomorrow would have to be a day of fasting, which was very good for one; it cleansed one’s soul and body and allowed one to reach a higher sphere of consciousness.

  With tomorrow the operative word, she drank her Coke and then finished off that one last small Almond Joy left over from her trip. The Almond Joys were really much, much smaller than before—a mere morsel with hardly any calories, she was sure. And she’d read somewhere that coconut didn’t have any cholesterol, although the palm oils weren’t all that good for you, but she wasn’t going to think about that now—when she was in the throes of a severe case of sexual deprivation!

  She chose to overlook the fact that she’d gone two months without sex prior to arriving in Ely.

  But too much factual data put you out of touch with your true inner self and the cosmic energy cycles that brought you extraordinary peace and understanding. So right now she didn’t want to be confused with petty facts. She was much more interested in where he went with that black-haired bitch!

  Calm, calm … draw in a breath of serenity and peace … let your vital life energy flow …

  Lily picked up the kitchen phone.

  Ten minutes later Ceci had talked her down: she wasn’t going to weigh three hundred pounds by next week due to her sexual trauma; all she needed was a good night’s sleep and everything would look calm and much improved in the morning. One thought less often of ex-lovers making love to black-haired bitches, she supposed, when one was eating her scrambled eggs and toast than when one was perhaps just slightly drunk.

  A glaring light flashed through the kitchen windows, and for a second she thought she’d witnessed an alien landing.

  It was car lights, she realized a moment later. She really shouldn’t have more than three drinks in an evening.

  The headlights were turned off, she heard a car door slam, and it just went to show you how harmful violence in movies was, because her first thought was that someone had come to cut her into ribbons with a kitchen knife in, appropriately, her kitchen.

  The part of her brain that hadn’t been completely blunted by alcohol reminded her that no one had been cut to ribbons in Ely—ever. That momentarily calming reminder allowed her to flash forward to a less vicious but equally alarming scenario about a woman who was attacked in her kitchen by a huge flock of birds. The lucid part of her brain screamed: STUPID! BIRDS DON’T DRIVE CARS!

  Nevertheless, the knock on the door sent a small shiver up her spine.

  “Yes?” she said, so softly even she realized no one could hear it. Clearing her throat for a second attempt, she glanced about, hoping to catch sight of a large-bladed kitchen knife within easy grasp. But since she hadn’t cooked since her arrival, nor had she opened a drawer save to find the spoon she needed to finish the Cherry Garcia, she knew it wasn’t likely that a useful long-bladed weapon would be readily available.

  “Lily! I can hear you breathing in there. Open the door.”

  Was that a choir of angels that had raised their voices on high or was she hallucinating after only five or six or at the very most seven drinks at the Birch Lake Saloon?

  “Lily, dammit. Open the door or I’ll break it down.”

  The angels stopped singing at Billy’s rather harsh tone of voice. “Don’t shout!” she shouted.

  “Open the door,” he said in a near normal tone.

  “It’s not locked.”

  She could hear him swearing and a second later he was standing in her kitchen looking just as good as he had earlier—maybe better now that she was in harmony with her inner self and her spontaneous and wholly natural sexual impulses. Peace and tranquillity—that was the answer.

  “Where’s that black-haired bitch you left with?” Her spitefulness surprised her, coming out without warning, but then the secrets of cosmic understanding require years of disciplined study. She’d start first thing in the morning.

  “I don’t know,” he said, smiling like he knew something she didn’t; she wondered if her robe was undone. “Do you want to go and look for her?”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Ceci said you wanted to strangle her.”

  “Ceci’s an unspeakable traitor—like an Aaron Burr or was it Nathan Hale? Who sold his country for—”

  “I’m glad she called me.”

  The way he said it sent a small shiver the other way this time, downward. “You are?”

  “I am.”

  “Would you care to explain?” “Not really.”

  “I suppose the word commitment mustn’t be uttered on pain of death.”

  “I suppose I’d better make you some coffee or you’re not going to remember a thing in the morning.”

  “I don’t care about commitment,” she meant to say, but it came out slurred and the word commitment took three tries.

  He didn’t seem to notice. He walked from the kitchen door around the table in the center of the floor to the counter where she was half standing and half leaning, listening to the choir of angels. He took her in his arms, looked into her eyes, and said very, very softly, “I know. It was my fault. Now, where’s your coffee?”

  Lily smelled the bacon before she opened her eyes and it took her a moment to properly register where she was to be smelling bacon in the morning. And it was obviously morning, because the very, very brilliant, too brilliant light from the unshaded windows was hurting her eyes. She turned her head to evade the hideously searing light and came face-to-face with the man who had occupied her dreams last night.

  “It’s not a dream,” he said, his mind-reading abilities in fine form, or perhaps her shock gave him a clue. He handed her a latte in one of the Lodge’s large white cups. “Two brown sugars, I hope that’s okay.” And then he sat down on the edge of the bed and took a sip from his latte.

  “You were in the kitchen last night,” she said, her gaze wary. She glanced down at her cup. “And you were at the Lodge this morning.”

  “Yes and no. They brought over the lattes.”

  “And?”

  “What else would you like to know? And don’t ask about Tammy, because we went over that last night ad nauseam.”

  “Tammy?”

  “The black-haired bitch.”

  It all came floodi
ng back, or more aptly, trickling back. “You stayed here last night?”

  “In this bed, actually.”

  “With me?”

  “Yeah. You shot me down on the ménage à trois. Just kidding,” he quickly said at the look in her eye.

  “You put something in my drink,” she accused.

  “I wasn’t with you, if you recall. Maybe it was Mr. Dockers.”

  She groaned softly. In her snit with Billy, she’d given Charles-call-me-Chip her phone number. Now it didn’t seem like such a good idea.

  “Having second thoughts about preppy men?”

  “You can be very annoying.”

  “That’s not what you said last night.”

  “You’re obviously dying to tell me about last night, so tell me.” She took a large gulp of coffee as though she might need it.

  “There’s nothing much to tell. While I was making you some coffee, you fell asleep with your head on the kitchen table. I carried you in here, put you to bed, and went to sleep.”

  “Sure you did.”

  He shrugged. “Not much point in having sex with a corpse.”

  “So it wasn’t chivalry.”

  He grinned. “Some of it was. I could have wakened you if I wanted. Drink your latte and quit breaking my balls. I was a Boy Scout last night.”

  Her feelings were a chaotic mix of irritation at his presumption and the usual flagrantly libidinous cravings that always overtook her when he was in sight. “Don’t you have to work?”

  He shook his head. “Took the day off.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought I’d spend it in bed with you. But you should eat first. There’s some breakfast in the kitchen.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “You should anyway,” he said, as if he didn’t know what she meant. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  She looked at him squinty-eyed. “Does everyone always say yes to you?”

  “No.”

  But the infinitesimal pause before he responded was answer enough. “I could be busy today,” she said.