The Mistress Memoirs

by Jillian Hunter

  Everyone in the house had praised Colin for his heroics, with the exception of Georgette, who had taken her nightly laudanum before Kate understood why she had gone into hysterics over a letter. There had been such an uproar over the day’s incident that it was universally decided to let the mistress of the manor sleep off her distress.

  Colin didn’t feel like a hero. He couldn’t protect the house alone. Perhaps it was time to reach out to his family, pride be buggered, and ask for help. He had not kept his promise to his father’s memory, but he had tried.

  “What are you thinking?” Kate whispered, staring at the assortment of pistols that had replaced the books and papers on her whatnot table. “Will they come back?”

  “I doubt it.” He released her from his arms, dropping his legs to the floor. “But I’m not about to take another chance. We’re leaving here the day after tomorrow. If it were possible, we’d be gone tonight.”

  She sat up, her hair cascading over her shoulders. “To where? Where in the world can we take refuge on such short notice and not attract attention as we go?”

  “My cousin Grayson has his country seat in Kent,” he said, rubbing his face. “I’ll send Lovitt ahead to alert the caretaker.”

  “He must have a palace if he’s able to take our brood under his wing. Are you sure he won’t object?”

  “One never needed an excuse or an invitation in our family to stay out a storm in past days. I haven’t any reason to believe a basic Boscastle tenet is no longer respected.”

  “Yes, but this is more than a storm.”

  “Grayson is the Marquess of Sedgecroft. From what Georgette has said, he has weathered quite a few storms and scandals since his father’s death.”

  “A man that important won’t mind sheltering three children, Nan, and the servants?”

  “Don’t forget the horses, dogs, and a cat,” he said with a droll smile.

  She shook her head in doubt. “How big is this house?”

  “It’s a vast estate with a lake and wooded hills covered with apple trees and caves where the children can play and forget what happened here.”

  She slipped to the floor and knelt before him. “You look tired.”

  “You look like the woman I dreamed about last night. I don’t think you should put your hand that high on my leg.”

  “How do you know the marquess is there?”

  “He might not be. But there will be a caretaker, gamekeeper, and gardeners to greet us before we enter the gates. Our families met every Christmas and on various occasions through the years. The grown-ups would dance and hold parties and play cards. The boy cousins took the girls captive in the treasure cave.”

  “We can’t simply show up on the doorstep like refugees and expect a warm reception.”

  “I’m wagering that we can. While we wait for Lovitt and Tom to return, you must help Georgette pack what can fit into one carriage. You should start tonight.”

  “One carriage? Georgette would need a wagon for her perfumes and powders alone.”

  “We’ll send the footmen back for anything we’ve forgotten.”

  “What about the horses and dogs?”

  “I haven’t decided how we’ll take them. We aren’t leaving the animals here unprotected.” He leaned down and looked into her eyes. “Courage, Kate. You have a Visigoth now as your guardian. If anyone attacks us on the road, they will be in for an unpleasant surprise.”

  “I don’t want another surprise,” she whispered. “What about Mason? What about the years you’ve lost and your honor?”

  “I’ll have to live with that. The world won’t end.” He curled his hands around her face. “But it would if anything happened to your or your makeshift family.”

  She swallowed. “Family—what will yours think of us? You dropping in with your former mistress in one hand, and me in the other.”

  “Don’t give it a moment’s thought. Decadence runs in the blood.”

  “It’s not going to run in Brian’s blood if I have any say in his future. When are you going to tell him?”

  “Before we leave.” His fingers tightened possessively around her face. “Neither Brian nor I intend to lose you. I had, however, wanted us to be married before I unleashed the family on you.”

  “Unleashed?”

  “I just asked you to marry me. Lovitt will arrive at Kent with a request for someone in the family to obtain a special license. Will you?”

  She smiled slowly.

  “Shall I get on my knees?”

  “I’d like that, but grant me a favor first—hide all those guns while you propose. I don’t want anything to mar my memory of this moment.”

  He lowered his hands and slid beside her to the floor. She stared up at him expectantly. “Kate—”

  “What if Mason does return? All you have is the word of two hooligans. What will Georgette say?”

  “Darling,” he said, “it might help if you sat in the chair.”

  She looked at the chair behind him and laughed, rising to seat herself above him. “There.”

  “Do you find my wish to make a proper proposal amusing?” he asked.

  “Not at all.”

  “Then why are you laughing?”

  “I’m not used to all this attention.”

  He bent on one knee. “Beloved—”

  She stared over his shoulder, clearly not as impressed as she should be.

  “What is it now?”

  “I can still see one of the guns.”

  “Dear God.” He rose, wrested a sheet from the bed, and threw it over the table. “Is that better?”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. “Yes.”

  He bent on one knee again. “Katherine, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

  She slid from the chair and flung her arms around his neck, kissing him with the passionate instincts he had taught her to trust. “I love you, Colin. I love you so much it terrifies me. Honor. Dishonor. Right now it doesn’t matter.”

  He kissed her even as he gently disentangled himself from her stranglehold. “And you’ll do anything I ask?”

  “Almost—yes, I will. Do you want me to prove it?”

  * * *

  She undressed him on the floor, peeling off his jacket between hot, hard kisses, unbuttoning his vest and pulling his shirt from his waistband. Breathless, still on her knees, she stared up at him as he stood to take off his trousers and lift his shirt to uncover the body whose shadow contours and strength she craved to touch, pleasure, and explore.

  She caught his wrists and pulled him back down to his knees. His erection rose stiff against her as he unlaced her shift. His arms encircled her, fusing her bare flesh to his. His hard chest felt like heaven. She kissed his neck, indulged her senses in the scent of his warm skin.

  He opened his thighs, lowering his hands to grasp the globes of her bottom. “You’ve got me on the floor now,” he whispered. “You know what that means?”

  He leaned back slowly until his shoulders touched the carpet. She fell against him as he stretched his legs out, trapping her between his thighs.

  His phallus looked like polished wood, and before she realized what he wanted her to do, he lifted her by the waist and lowered her onto the entire length of his erection. She shuddered, not breathing, as he raised his hips. He reached up to caress her swollen breasts. Brazenly she rubbed her nipples across his palms, tempting him as he tempted her. “Is this what you had in mind?” he asked.

  She arched her back, felt his hand tighten to hold her still. “You can’t expect me to carry on a conversation in this position,” she whispered, the words broken by the shallow breaths she managed to steal.

  He felt larger than she could possibly take inside her. But when she lifted herself slightly from his impalement, he locked both his hands around her hips and drew her down with a force she felt to the back of her throat.

  “Why don’t we talk later?” he whispered, his voice deep with unabashed pleasure. “Relax, kneel astride me.�
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  She shook her head, her hair spilling over his neck. “You’re rather big. Give me a little time.”

  “Don’t make me wait.”

  “Why not?” She raised herself until his cock almost slid from her sheath. His body trembled. His face darkened.

  She lowered herself down hard, gloving his prick to the root. A stab of pain momentarily slowed her, but the sensual urgency in his eyes reminded her that she would endure anything to please him. She felt the fullness of his cock to the tip of her womb, the pit of her belly.

  He groaned, one hand still teasing her nipples, the other grasping her bottom. It seemed to Kate that her body’s moisture eased her discomfort enough that she could concentrate on him. His breathing became erratic. He lowered his hand from her breast to the bud of her sex and played her until she was half-wild, raising herself up and down on his shaft without volition.

  She undulated her hips, lifted again, and bore down on his cock with a wanton instinct she could not control.

  He exhaled through his teeth. “When did you learn to move your ass like that?”

  “Do you like it?”

  “Sweetheart, the only thing I’d like better is for you to take me deeper.”

  “Deeper? I—”

  He tightened his lower back and drove upward before she could finish explaining that she thought he would tear her apart. But her body stretched, sliding up and down on his with an unbridled eroticism that he acknowledged with a deep groan. It was easier now to take pleasure in his sexuality, and in her own. The stark desire on his face as he watched her encouraged her efforts, promised a reward.

  “Perfect,” he whispered. “Don’t stop.”

  How could she stop when she shared his passion? She moved to an instinctive beat, pressure building, her muscles trembling to hold him inside. He stroked steadily at the nub of her sex. She felt her spine flex as the friction became too intense to bear.

  “Not yet,” he said, his eyes locked with hers.

  “When?” Her eyes slowly closed; his image was seared in her mind. She writhed as he took control, quickened the pace, heightened her need until she broke in a beautiful climax that rendered her helpless, his to use at will.

  “Now,” he said in a low voice that intensified every emotion, every feeling that flooded her. “Let me show you my love.”

  He drew his hands down to her bottom to keep her steady as he surged, his breathing harsh, his hips bucking. She opened her eyes, the spasms still rippling through her belly when he growled and pumped one last time inside her.

  She watched the elemental darkness on his face ease. She felt his warm semen seep out of her body and slide down her thighs. His eyes held hers in uninhibited possession. The moment spun into an eternity. She had learned many things from Georgette’s life as well as from her memoirs. But it was only now that she understood how sacred was the aftermath of intimacy.

  “Was it too rough?” he asked, caressing her shoulder.

  “Yes,” she replied, trying to hide a smile.

  “And you liked it?” he inquired.

  She released a sigh. “I refuse to flatter your conceit with an answer. Are the scattered remnants of my composure not enough to satisfy you?”

  He sat up, still embedded in her, and hooked one arm around her neck to kiss her in grateful contentment. “I told you that I would make a rider of you yet.”

  She nestled her head against his shoulder. She soaked in the feel of him. Strong, unrestrained, to be her husband. Hers to spoil at her leisure. She shivered in pleasure at the thought of the years ahead. “Let’s get you into bed again,” he said at length. “I have to leave.”

  “Already?”

  He withdrew from her body, rising to lift and gently drop her on the bed. “You said all night,” she whispered.

  “I’ll be back. The other men and I are sharing watch.”

  She stared at his profile, afraid he was trying to bolster her courage. “Do you think anything will happen?”

  He turned to the washstand and moistened two towels. He brought one back to the bed to gently bathe her, lingering on the scars that marred her skin. With the other he briskly cleaned his body and dressed before she could reach for the robe at the end of the bed.

  “Sleep,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t think they’ll ever return. But I’m not taking another chance.” He hesitated. “Should I tell Georgette the plans or will you?”

  “I will.”

  “Thank God. The best of luck.”

  She sat up to slip on her robe. Goodness knew where her night rail was. Perhaps in the day’s ill-fated washing. “Be careful, Colin. I won’t rest until I see you again.”

  Chapter 34

  She should have known better; there was no rest for the wicked or for fallen women. She sat up guiltily as the door clattered open and a round figure in aquamarine silk flew to her bedside.

  “Are they here again?” she asked, slowly recognizing Georgette in the dark. “Should I wake the children? Do I have time to dress properly?”

  “I don’t know,” Georgette said wryly, dragging a chair to the bedside. “Do you? You don’t appear to have time for the person who has gainfully employed you for over a decade.”

  “I—oh, madam. I’m sorry. It was a wretched day. I had to feed the children and stay with them until they slept. Then the other servants and I went about locking—”

  Georgette’s eyes gleamed. “You didn’t lock your door against a certain gentleman.”

  Kate took Georgette’s hand. “No. I didn’t.”

  Georgette sighed deeply. “What did I tell you? It was fate.”

  “I suppose it was.”

  Georgette rose, taking the taper in its brass holder from the night table to light the wick from the dying embers of the fire. After she returned the burning taper to its place, she went back to the chair and drew from her bodice a crumpled letter.

  “Do you know what this is?” she asked, charging on before Kate had a chance to read a single line. “It is a notice to terminate my contract with Mason as well as to evict me from his house.”

  Kate rescued the letter from Georgette’s fist. “Well, we knew we couldn’t stay here, and we knew what sort of man he—”

  “I was wrong again. It only proves what my father always said. I’m stupid, Kate. I thought Mason cared for me. I could believe anything except that his feelings for me were false.”

  “Madam,” Kate said, staring at the signature scrawled across the bottom of the letter. “I believed, too, that Mr. Earling loved you. He must have been upset when he wrote this. His signature is slightly different from what I’ve seen of it before.”

  “You mean when he used to write me love letters? Obviously he doesn’t love me enough now to return or answer to Colin once and for all.”

  “Loving you may not have made him brave.”

  “Everyone knows better than a whore. I had to have Griswold read this humiliation to me because the words made my head spin.”

  “Are you still angry at me, madam?” Kate asked in hesitation.

  Georgette gave her a vacant look. “For what?”

  Kate shook her head, laughing helplessly even as she held back tears. “I do love you.”

  “Good,” Georgette snatched the letter from Kate’s hands and tossed it over her shoulder into the fire.

  “Wait! I wanted to look at it again in better light.”

  “It can burn in the brightest flames of hell for all I care,” Georgette said. “We have much to do before Colin takes you from me. We shall finish my book even if we spend your honeymoon chained to your desk to write from morning until midnight.”

  “I can’t imagine he would agree to that.”

  “You can’t spend all your time in bed with him, can you?”

  Kate blushed, rising to escape behind the dressing screen.

  “I forgot,” Georgette said. “Of course you can. We’ll have to work every spare minute in the meantime. I’ll publ
ish the damned book if only for a pittance. It’s the only revenge left for a woman forced to rely on her wiles.”

  Chapter 35

  Mason Earling sat in glassy-eyed silence at the table of his private room in the riverfront tavern that lay between Southampton and East Crowleigh. His solicitor ate heartily of a thick slab of steak and kidney pie. But Mason thought he might be ill. He took a deep draught of his beer, his stomach sour as Hay crammed a huge portion of pie into his mouth.

  “I warned you, Mason. I told you that taking Boscastle’s old lover as your mistress would lure him to you. Stupid male pride.”

  “I have always cared for Mrs. Lawson.”

  Hay grunted. “This is why your accounts are depleted. You throw money at a harlot when you should be bolstering the investments the company has made.”

  Mason set down his mug in consternation. “The last I heard from London, the firm had started returning high profits again. Did I misread the recent statements?”

  Hay scowled, regarding Mason as if he was too simple to understand the basic machinations of his own business. “Possibly. You’ve been so engrossed in your mistress that I doubt you are all there.”

  “How is she? Is everything well at the house?”

  Hay stabbed a chunk of kidney with his knife. “She is as selfish and frivolous as a Covent Garden whore. Why you couldn’t have found an heiress to enrich your coffers, I’ll never understand. And why you keep paying for that incompetent staff of servants is beyond me. That old footman should be in the grave by now. That hag of a nursemaid belongs right beside him.”

  “I have loved Georgette for years,” Mason said, flushing in resentment.

  “Have you?” Hay eyed him in disdain. “What a pity she doesn’t love you.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “She is sleeping with the man who plans to kill you.”

  He shook his head in bewilderment. “You can’t mean Boscastle? He’s in—”

  “—Georgette’s bed, which I believe you purchased and had brought from London to please her fickle tastes.”