Mistress by Midnight

by Maggie Robinson

  “I don’t know, Uncle. The open dales. The bracing cold air. You might like it.”

  “Damn you! It’s through my offices you’ve got as far as you have. You’d never be marrying without my say so! You need my signature.”

  Con looked at his uncle but said nothing. He hoped it was perfectly clear what he thought of his uncle’s efforts and his signature. He might be forced to marry, but he was not going to like it.

  “I think that’s a brilliant plan, Miss Berryman.”

  His uncle rose up in anger, spilling his glass of whiskey on the carpet. Berryman’s whiskey. They had had no spirits in the house until Berryman moved in, bringing half of Fortnum and Mason’s Food Emporium with him. Con had choked on the fancy jam on his toast just this morning.

  Lord Robert must have thought the better of his outburst, and sat down abruptly. Things must be worse for his uncle than even Con knew. He returned to his reverie, imagining Laurette as his marchioness, wearing the Conover tiara. It was paste now, of course, had been since his grandfather financed a trip to the Sinai. But Laurette didn’t need diamonds and rubies when her love blazed so brightly. Love that Con had to find a way to extinguish once and for all.

  The tiara had been restored, every diamond and ruby, and waited for her in a vault at Berryman and Sons Bank. The bank would be James’s, should he care to run it. If not, Con would see that it was managed well.

  Breathless, Laurette stopped and shook a stone out of her shoe. “You’ve not been here before?”

  “I came up last fall for a few days.” Con took his hat off and shook his mane of black hair in the sunlight. “That water looks refreshing.”

  “We are not about to go for a swim,” Laurette said, firmly. “The sooner I get out of these dusty clothes, the happier I’ll be.” She hooked an arm in his and tugged him over the grass, guiding him for once.

  “In a hurry to find a bed?” he teased.

  “In a hurry to settle in. Travel does not seem to agree with me.”

  She had looked a bit green around the gills the last few days, and had been silent as a clam. “Pity. I’d hoped to take you to some of my favorite spots in the world.”

  “We only have four months left, my lord. I hardly think there will be time.” At least she’d given up tacking on the exact number of days. She took a long stride forward. A golden plover rose up from its nest and fluffed its feathers practically in her face. Laurette gave a little shriek.

  “There now. You’d think you were a city girl,” Con said, laughing, catching a swirling feather and tucking it into the brim of her bonnet. “Last I was here, there were birds in the house. I do hope my caretaker has managed to evict them.”

  Laurette glared at him. “Just exactly why did you bring me all this way? From everything you’ve said, I’m surprised you can give up all your luxuries to camp out in the back of beyond.”

  “It’s true the house was so dilapidated we couldn’t even sell it when we had most need to do so. The best of the acreage went long ago. But what’s left is family land. My mother was born here and I wanted to show it to—you,” he said quickly.

  That had been a near thing. He knew he had to tell her the truth soon, but not when she might clout him with one of the rocks she kept tripping over.

  They climbed up another hill and she was too out of breath to pepper him with more questions. Con was right. The weeks in London had turned her into a city girl, sequestered in her harem, and stuffed with pastries. If she wasn’t careful, she’d outgrow her new wardrobe.

  Below her was Con’s “farm.” Only a man who lived with the remnant of Conover Castle on his front lawn could consider the substantial stone manor house with such modesty. It was a large gray rectangle with four chimneys and a swath of ivy growing up near the arched doorway. Pots of blooming flowers flanked the recessed door. The slate roof looked new and the odd-sized windows gleamed. Behind it was a collection of outbuildings in various stages of repair, but some new work had been done to them, too. Neat stone walls enclosed a large pasture. The overall impression cheered Laurette up considerably. A glimmer of blue through the trees must be the lake Con talked about. There was no sign of Tomas and the carriage in the crushed stone courtyard, nor, in fact, any signs of life.

  “Welcome to Stanbury Hill Farm. I believe there must be chickens, but I’m afraid there is no other livestock at present.”

  Laurette grinned. “They do not reside in the house, do they?”

  “Not to my knowledge. There have been a few improvements since my last visit, and I hope that is among them. And rest assured, my great-uncle is gone as well.”

  Laurette knew Lord Robert had been exiled quite against his will to Yorkshire. Both Marianna and her father had held him in the utmost contempt, although he had been useful to them in acquiring Con. Marianna had been surprised when his letters of endless complaint stopped arriving a few years ago. After investigation, she discovered that he had wandered off one winter day and never returned. It was presumed he had gotten himself lost in the moorlands and died, although his body was never found, even after a search in the spring. There were icy fells and water aplenty for an old man to have slipped from and into. The local woman employed as his housekeeper reported that Lord Robert had become increasingly difficult and irascible.

  In Laurette’s opinion, he’d always been horrible. The man had made Con suffer growing up in a thousand little ways, from hiring vicious tutors who beat Con when he didn’t decline verbs properly, to bankrupting him through the Berrymans. She, like the rest of the villagers of Lower Conover, attended his brief memorial service, but none of them shed any tears.

  “He let the house go, as you might expect, not that it was in good shape to begin with. The man would do anything to cause me trouble. It should be livable now after all I’ve spent on it, but the first order of tomorrow’s business is to get a crew together to repair that road. I can’t believe they didn’t tell me—” Con closed his mouth abruptly.

  This was the second time he’d stopped himself from saying what he was thinking. “Who is they?”

  Con took her hand and squeezed it. They both still wore their gloves, but she could feel the heat of his palm. Suddenly he looked so serious that she thought he might say his uncle was still a danger, walking the moors as a wraith.

  “I had wanted this to be a surprise, but perhaps I should prepare you before we go further and enter the house. Maybe we should sit down.”

  A gust of wind caught her skirts, and she struggled to hold them fast. Her last wish was to tempt Con with a sight of her legs right now. She dropped to the grass and arranged herself in her most forbidding manner. “This sounds ominous. Get on with it.”

  “It’s not meant to be.” He pulled off a glove and ran his fingers through a thatch of bright green grass. “We will be spending the summer here.”

  Laurette shrugged. “As you wish. As long as I’m home before Christmas.” She had already prepared herself not to see her daughter this summer. Thanks to Marianna’s generosity—and guilt—she had been able to see Beatrix for a week every year.

  Ten years ago, after Con had been missing for months, Marianna had invited Laurette to tea, and she had reluctantly consented. They were neighbors in the country—it would have looked odd to avoid each other. When she had been presented to Viscount James Horace Ryland, Laurette knew she held a piece of Con’s heart in her arms. The handsome child, so different from her delicate Beatrix, won her over immediately. From there, one cup of tea had led to several years of ironic friendship.

  Marianna had been her blunt self that first day.

  “I know my husband loves you,” she began, once the nursemaid took James away.

  Laurette had the choice of feigning shock or being honest. She had lived a lie too long already. “He married you,” Laurette said, equally blunt.

  Marianna dropped a lump of sugar into her teacup, paused, then shrugged and added another. “So he did. I tried my best, but he was very unhappy. I came to
love him a little, you know.” She gave a brittle laugh. “Foolish of me. I was much older and wiser, or so I thought. I’m used to getting my own way. Papa spoiled me dreadfully. I’m afraid I simply expected Conover to fall prey to my charms.”

  “You are very pretty. Elegant.” Everything about Marianna and her house was perfection.

  “Yes, well, I am finding it ever more difficult to slim since the baby was born. I see your figure has returned to you.”

  Laurette felt a hot blush sweep across her face. It seemed like hours before she found her voice. “You knew?”

  Marianna pushed a pale curl from her forehead. “Not until after James was born and Conover disappeared. Papa didn’t want to worry me. But he always tells me everything. Eventually. The business may be called Berryman and Sons, but there are none, you know. Just me. I am his partner in all things. I would have married Conover even if I knew you were increasing, though. It had been planned for years. Conover just didn’t know it.”

  Laurette put her cup down. The rattle of cup to saucer seemed very loud.

  “You think me an evil witch, I’m sure, but I’m only telling you the truth. Papa had selected Conover for me before he started to grow whiskers. Even sent him to Cambridge so I wouldn’t marry some country dolt. Once he got his hooks into Lord Robert, it was only a matter of time. Of course, there were a few other candidates, but none of them suited me so well.”

  “Didn’t you care?” cried Laurette.

  Marianna waved a small white hand. “Of course I did. I wanted to be a marchioness, and so I am. My position in society is assured. I have lovely homes and a beautiful son. If Conover had been unattached, I’m sure we would have got on splendidly.” She paused, looking directly into Laurette’s eyes. “I didn’t repulse him, you know. Our honeymoon was everything it should have been.”

  Laurette felt ill. Surely she wasn’t going to be miss-ish and faint before her enemy.

  “But he was attached.” Marianna extended the same hand she had waved so dismissively. Laurette stared at it stupidly until Marianna took hers and shook it. “I congratulate you. Once he knew I was with child, he never touched me again. Not once.” Her voice sounded wistful. “Despite all my father’s machinations, Conover did exactly what he was required by the terms of their agreement—but no more. When I was safely delivered of James, he disappeared within the week. Didn’t even collect the sum my father was prepared to release to him. I don’t expect to see him again. He may have been young, but he outsmarted us all.”

  But Con had been left himself, let down by every adult he had ever known. “I’m sure Con knows you are a good mother.”

  Marianna smiled. Her small perfect teeth were whiter than her earbobs. “He thought me a most managing female. And I am. Which is why I invited you here today.”

  Laurette’s brows rose in question.

  “We can do nothing about the disposition of your daughter, but I can arrange for funds so you can visit her every year. I know if James were taken from me I could not bear it.”

  Laurette swallowed, not trusting her voice. Her cousins had not forbidden her contact, and were scrupulous reporting Bea’s every milestone by letter. Laurette sometimes wished they wouldn’t write. Every post reminded her of her emptiness.

  “But I shouldn’t like Con to know about Beatrix just yet. Not that I have any way to contact him, he moves about so. I imagine he’d be so angry at my father’s deception that he’d take my son away. And he could. Children belong to their fathers, no matter that it’s Berryman coin that puts the food into Jamie’s mouth.”

  For one instant Laurette saw Con striding into the house to take James. It would be what the Berrymans deserved, after plotting to ruin his life. Her life.

  But no. They hadn’t ruined anything. Con’s uncle had been the treacherous one. They had just seen a bargain. Marianna Berryman had restored Ryland Grove and the prosperity of the Conover villages and was raising Con’s son to merit his title.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because, my dear Laurette, we have a great deal in common. And I could use a friend. Those Cobb twins are simply hideous.”

  It was not Lord Robert’s wraith but Marianna Berryman who sat beside Laurette on the hillside. Her old enemy-turned-friend. Marianna’s long-estranged husband sat across from her. What would Marianna say to her refusing Con’s offer of marriage and settling for being Con’s mistress? Laurette imagined a sharp-tongued lecture from an entirely practical point of view.

  But she could not marry Con. They could never acknowledge Beatrix. Her delayed happiness could not paper over such a hole in her heart.

  Chapter 11

  Con kept his dark eyes focused on the grass. He had been silent so long she wondered what this difficult subject could be. At last he cleared his throat. “We will not be alone.”

  “Of course not. Aram and Nadia will be with us. I know you think you would die if I did the cooking. I have told you over and over I am much more proficient in the kitchen than I was.”

  “Stop interrupting!”

  “Yes, my lord. I’ve forgotten my place as your mistress once again. I am completely at your mercy. Wherever you wish to spend the time for the duration of our contract makes no difference to me.” She gave him her haughtiest look.

  “Damn it! You are making this difficult.” Con ran a hand through his glossy, shoulder-length hair. Good. She liked to discompose him when she could. It seemed only fair when his every touch drove her to complete distraction.

  “The children are here.” Only half of his mouth turned up in a smile, revealing his anxiety.

  Another blast of wind took his words away, but she was afraid she’d heard them clear enough. “I beg your pardon?”

  “James and Beatrix. They’re here. Nico and Sadie brought them last week.”

  “What have you done?” she whispered.

  “Something that should have been done long ago.” He edged away as if he knew she wanted to get her hands around his neck. “I want us to spend time together. As a family.”

  A family! Something that could never, ever be. The man was indeed the “Mad Marquess” if he thought to throw them together like this and erase a dozen years of heartbreak and betrayal. “Does she know? Did you tell her?” Laurette asked, not masking the desperation in her voice.

  “No, of course not. I would never tell her without you. Though she’s very sharp.”

  “You’ve seen her?” Each of Con’s words was worse than the one before. Laurette saw pinpricks of black race across her eyes, felt the bile rise up in her throat—she was going to be sick. Panicked, she thought of cool, rainbowed waterfalls, icy water and fresh snow, but she lost her fight. Despite her efforts to push him away, Con cradled her as she made her mess on the grass, after which he wiped her mouth tenderly with his handkerchief.

  He picked her up as if she weighed nothing and carried her some yards away. She was too disconsolate to protest. Con settled her against a small boulder for support and began to pace, making her dizzy all over again. She shut her eyes, but could not shut her ears.

  “Last year I asked you to marry me, and you refused. I knew it was too soon after Marianna died—but damn it, Laurie, I’d waited too long to have you. I did not love Marianna—why should I observe a full year of mourning for a woman who was practically a stranger to me?”

  “Not such a stranger. She was the mother of your son,” Laurette retorted.

  “But I loved you. You don’t know what—well, it doesn’t matter. I asked, and you said no. I was almost, almost ready to give up the idea of you—the idea of us—and then I found out about Bea.

  “Then your refusal made a kind of sense to me. No wonder you hated me. I hate me too.” He drew a breath. “But when you forbade me from ever knowing her, I couldn’t bear it. I made it a point to go to her school, meet with her guardians. She’s so lovely, Laurie. Different from you. And me. But she is a clever girl. I want to tell her. I want us to tell her together. I think�
��”

  Laurette leaped up. “You think! You think!” she shrieked. “No! She’ll be ruined! Everything I’ve gone through to give her a respectable life will be for nothing!” She wanted to tear out her hair. She wanted to tear out Con’s. How could he do something so very stupid? So very selfish?

  He reached out for her but she darted away. “Listen to me. I can make her my ward. In the eyes of society, they’ll never know. When we marry—”

  “What? We are not going to marry! I will never, ever marry you! I hate you, just as you said!” Laurette tore off her feathered bonnet in frustration, tossing it down the hill. It bounced until it came to rest on a rock. “You have a son. Worry about him. Leave my daughter alone.”

  “She is our daughter, Laurette. I robbed myself of knowing James, but I will not make the same mistake now that I know I have a daughter. I will not abandon two children. I had hoped that by all of us staying here James and I can make peace. That you can help me with him.”

  “I? Your mistress? You are absolutely mad!”

  “I know he thinks of you as a kind of aunt, Laurie. He mentioned you to me last Christmas, even if you never once indicated that you and Marianna were friends,” he said quietly. “I’ve known all along that you know him. That you knew her.”

  He expected her to feel guilty. Well, she was not. She kept her past quiet for a reason.

  “He admires you. Looks up to you.” Con stared off into the distance. “So many secrets. I’m done with secrets, Laurie. Just done. My life has been one long cock-up, but no more. I love you. I love my children. Please give this a chance.”

  Laurette clenched her fists and paced at the top of the ridge. Nothing would induce her to go down to that silvergray house now. Nothing. “I am going home. I cannot—I will not—be party to this ridiculous family reunion. Bea is fine as things are. I am her c-cousin. That is all.”

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

  Laurette glared at him, wishing she could wipe away the calm concern on his face. He looked so—hopeful, so understanding. He knew nothing. “Oh, you stupid, stupid man. I had to give her up! I gave my own child away! Of course I’m afraid. She’ll never forgive me. I can’t forgive myself.” She broke out in noisy sobs and pushed him away when he tried to comfort her. “You’ve ruined everything. Everything. I don’t care about my brother’s debts. Find him and clap him in jail. Toss me out of Vincent Lodge. I’ll become some other man’s mistress.” She hiccupped. “That’s all I’m good for anyway. You have wrecked my life once more, Desmond Ryland. I never want to see you again.”