“Is that what you want to do?”
“I think I’m well suited to it.”
He nodded. She would do well with that plan, had lots of time to implement it and enjoy the fruits of it. She was only four years younger than his thirty-three years.
“Why does Althea have a need for this skill you’re to teach her?” she asked quietly.
“She plans to be some man’s—some lord’s—mistress.”
“Ah. I know a couple of girls who went that route. It hasn’t been a bad life for them. Fancy house, fancy clothes, fancy food. Makes it a bit rough, though, when they fall in love with their keeper.”
He couldn’t imagine Althea being content to be kept as though she were a pet. He often wondered if his own mother had been kept. His brother Aiden knew his mother had been his father’s mistress. During the past year Aiden had come to know his mother, and Beast fought not to envy his sibling for the closeness he was developing with the woman who’d given birth to him. At the time Aiden was born, she’d had no choice but to give him up.
Based upon what Beast knew of his own mother’s words when she’d handed him over to Ettie Trewlove, she’d had no choice, either. She’d promised to come back for him, but perhaps that had been said only to ease her conscience. He didn’t like to consider that some misfortune had befallen her, preventing her return. He’d rather imagine her healthy, happy, and well cared for. He could forgive her for not wanting him. Life wasn’t easy when a woman had a bastard in tow. “You’ll teach her how to avoid pregnancy?”
“Who? Althea?”
“No, my mum.” He gave her a frustrated glare. “Yes, Althea. That’s who we’ve been discussing.”
“For someone you have no interest in knowing carnally, you certainly are worrying about her.”
After tossing back his scotch, he set the glass on the desk with a little more force than was necessary, taking satisfaction in the loud thunk, and stood. “We have a responsibility to ensure she avoids all the pitfalls.”
He just wasn’t certain that where she was concerned, he had the wherewithal to avoid them.
Chapter 10
Althea stood before the cheval glass in her bedchamber, studying her reflection, wondering if she should change into the green rather than wear the gray that had serviced her all day, from arrival through dinner.
She’d been startled to appear for the evening meal and discover the ladies wearing what they’d worn in the library—not a stitch more.
Sitting at the head of the table, fully dressed in a black jacket, gray waistcoat, white shirt, and a perfectly knotted neck cloth, indicating he saw these women of the night as worthy of his attiring himself properly when dining with them, Benedict immediately came to his feet when she entered the dining room.
Clutching her hands in front of her, suddenly self-conscious, she said, “You don’t have to stand for me.”
“He stands for everyone, love. Don’t think you’re special,” Jewel said, sitting at the other end of the table.
Yet, for him she wanted to be.
Then he indicated the chair to the side, immediately on his left, and she had felt she was special. During the entire meal, they’d not spoken. Not because she hadn’t wanted to but because the other ladies had dominated the conversation, talking over each other, revealing their excitement as they illuminated their successes and others’ failures during their lessons. While she was gratified by their enthusiasm, tomorrow she would begin tutoring them on proper dining etiquette.
Afterward, they’d all adjourned to their rooms and she had listened to the minutes tick. She had heard their laughter and footsteps when they’d traipsed down to start entertaining customers. And still she’d waited.
She’d pinned and unpinned her hair three times. To wear it up, to wear it down. She’d finally decided on up.
She had considered penning her impressions of the women, a sort of journal for her own edification, or maybe an article for others. The afternoon had been a revelation. They were so very different from the ladies with whom she’d previously spent her time. She was no longer certain it was to the benefit of the aristocracy to be so dictatorial regarding with whom they should associate. As a result, she’d acquired a rather limited view of the world.
But then so had these ladies, begrudgingly referring to her as a toff, a bit suspicious until they’d come to know her a little better. Eventually, they might even become friends. Wouldn’t Society have a laugh at that?
When the clock finally struck ten, she quietly padded down the hallway papered in green decorated with tiny pink flowers, giving it a homelike feel. This residence ran the gamut from sensual to masculine to feminine, which made it easier to determine the purpose of each area. As she neared the library, she noticed the door was opened wide.
When she peered inside, she saw Benedict sitting before the fireplace in one of two wing chairs upholstered in a plum-shaded velvet. She thought she’d been quiet but he either heard her arrival or felt her presence because he immediately put aside his book and stood.
“You don’t have to stand for me,” she said again.
“It’s the way I was taught.”
By the woman who had given him a treasured silver match safe. Taking a step over the threshold, she wandered in, wondering if the ladies had been as nervous about their lessons as she was about hers. Then she spotted the glass of sherry resting on the table beside the empty chair and smiled.
“If you prefer something else—” he began.
“No, sherry is good.” Standing before the chair, she folded her hands in front of her. “As I’ll have a few hours to myself each day, I should like to spend the time reading. Somewhere within this room must be at least one copy of Murder at Ten Bells. Are you going to make me search for it?”
She took the opportunity to appreciate the smoothness of his long strides as he made his way to a bookcase with glass doors near the entry into the room. A click sounded as he pulled open one of the doors, and when he closed it. As he neared her, he extended a book. Reverently, she took it and skimmed her fingers over the wavy grain of the violet hard cover. Then she turned it in order to admire the spine where the title and his name were etched in gold. She wanted to caress the man as much as she did the book. She lifted her gaze to his. “Will you mind if I read it?”
“You may have it, do with it as you will.”
“I don’t want to take your copy—”
“I have another. Several, in fact.” He returned to his chair but remained standing.
She edged around hers, eased onto the plush cushion, and took a sip of the sherry, waiting while he settled.
Studying her, he took a long swallow of what she was fairly certain was scotch. “During dinner, each of the ladies shared their account of the afternoon, but you held silent. So now tell me the truth of it.”
She was grateful they weren’t going to immediately leap into her lessons. “It went fairly well, even if they are a bit unruly at times. I’m given to understand you had a very nice frock made for each of them. I need them to wear it during lessons.”
“Then have them do so.”
“When I suggested it, I learned you told them the frocks may only be worn on the day they leave—and they see your word as sacrosanct. However, if they are to have any success, they need to view themselves differently, as ladies. And they can’t do that if they are flaunting their attributes.”
“I’ll talk with them.”
“Thank you.”
His gaze traveled the length of her in an assessing way that had her wishing she was dressed in something similar to what the ladies had been wearing that afternoon.
“Tomorrow I’ll take you to a seamstress to have some frocks made for you.”
“That’s very generous of you, but not necessary.”
“You have the gray, a blue”—that she’d worn the second night he’d seen her at the pub—“the green. Have you anything else?”
A flannel nightdress and undergarme
nts, although she didn’t think he really had any interest in those items. She didn’t want to acknowledge how worn the gray and the blue were becoming. “I find them to be sufficient.”
“You just successfully argued that a person’s clothing should reflect who they are and what they want from life. Shouldn’t the same apply to you? Shouldn’t you have clothing worthy of a seductress?”
With her own words, he’d trapped her into doing what he wanted. It annoyed her that he should be so clever.
She looked toward the fire, remembering a time when she would have stalked from the room in a fit of temper, would have rained down oaths, would have seen servants sacked, for an irritation much less potent than the anger roiling through her for having fallen into his snare. But that was back when she had options, relied on no one’s mercy, because her father had wielded such power that the tentacles of it reached out and cradled her, so she mirrored that power. But she no longer had the luxury of showing her annoyance, or the authority to insist those surrounding her work diligently to make matters right. As a mistress, her future would be determined by the whims of a man and her ability not to show her upset with him. She feared she wouldn’t be up to the task, that she didn’t possess the acting skills necessary to disguise her displeasure.
She turned her attention back to him. “You’re quite right. I thank you for your kind consideration. A trip to the dressmaker would be welcome.”
If he gloated with his success, she would call it a night. Only he didn’t. He simply continued to study her.
“I forgot to mention, and I don’t know if you discerned it this afternoon, but all the ladies read. If there are any books that would help you in achieving your goal, give me the titles and I’ll see them delivered here.”
“I’m surprised. I would have thought not knowing one’s letters would have been a factor in leading them to this occupation.”
“Women turn to this life for all sorts of reasons. Some have the ability to read, some don’t. My sister Fancy offers free reading lessons for adults a couple of nights a week. I took the ones who couldn’t read to her classes so at least they’d have that advantage.”
She recalled that the youngest Trewlove had recently married the Earl of Rosemont. For a while Althea had been obsessed, striving to keep up with the happenings within the aristocracy, each marriage, birth, and scandal bringing home how much she was no longer a part of it all. But finding gossip sheets lying about was always a challenge. She no longer had any friends willing to gossip with her.
She’d once hoarded the most inconsequential of rumors, the ones that didn’t make it into the gossip rags, as though they were the rarest of sweets to be savored. But then she’d lost her taste for them after her family had dominated everyone’s tongue in a most unflattering and unsavory manner.
“You’re very keen to see women educated.”
“My mum believed knowledge was key to achieving a better life. She insisted we attend the ragged schools, wouldn’t allow us to miss a single day. When we all began working, we pooled our coins to purchase a yearly subscription to a lending library. It only allowed us to borrow one book at a time, so we rotated who had the honor of selecting the book. Even if we weren’t interested in the one chosen, we had to read it so we could gather to discuss it. I suspect some are surprised by how much we know, how much we comprehend, how easily we can carry on a conversation regarding the most complicated of topics. How we can back up our stances and arguments with facts. As a result, I am keen to see women educated. They should have as much opportunity as men to better their lives. I’ve never understood a man wanting a wife with whom he couldn’t have a rousing debate.”
“As I won’t be anyone’s wife, I won’t be debating. I imagine my paramour will be of the mind that I should be seen and not heard.”
“More fool he. A woman’s words can seduce me more effectively than the sway of her hips.”
She couldn’t deny that his words were more seductive than the breadth of his shoulders. Not that she wouldn’t mind skimming her fingers over those shoulders.
“Are there particular words you find more seductive than others?” she asked.
He took a sip of his scotch, and she wanted to gather from his lips whatever dampness remained. Chadbourne’s lips had been thin, the upper one barely visible, but Benedict’s mouth was like the rest of him—broad, full, and tempting.
“Honest ones, perhaps even painful ones,” he finally answered. “I recall reading about your father in minute detail, all he endured as a traitor to the Crown, but nothing about you. Yesterday you told me that I knew the truth of you. Only I don’t. Tell me the truth of you.”
She gave her attention back to the fire. “I was so enjoying our conversation.”
He drew back his legs, leaned forward, placed his elbows on his thighs, and cradled his glass in both hands as though it was a tiny bird in need of protection. “Althea, I’ve shared a good bit of my life with you—personal bits, successful bits. I told you the truth of Sally, my role in her death, the guilt I feel because of it. You comforted me and now that secret is no longer between us. Why do you hide so much of yourself from me?”
“There’s shame in my past.”
“Do you think being born a bastard, that I know naught of shame? That I would ridicule you for hardships suffered or judge you for circumstances over which you had no control?”
“I told you I don’t know the details.”
“I don’t want the details of him. I want the details of you.”
If he hadn’t gone so quiet, so still, merely waiting for her to come around, to confess all, she might have been able to ignore him. But she’d never been able to speak of the matter with anyone, to unburden herself. Her family had suffered as well, but by tacit agreement, they’d all refused to hash out the matter, to give voice to their feelings of betrayal. It seemed to express any of it aloud would serve to make matters worse. So they’d all pretended it hadn’t happened as it had. They’d simply woken up one morning to find themselves commoners and paupered.
It might have been easier if she’d kept her gaze on the blue, red, and orange flames dancing wildly on the hearth, but for some reason she sought out the dark depths of his eyes, the square cut of his jaw, the sharp, knife-like edge of his nose, the high bones of his cheeks, all the contours of his face that had become so achingly familiar she could have drawn him from memory. The intensity with which he studied her as though he truly cared about the answer frightened her as much as it comforted her. Scared her because she shouldn’t long for his attentions, cherish his presence. He was a temporary part of her life, as so many had been. She had learned through heartbreak and disappointment that devotion could be snuffed out with a mere word or gesture.
“It was eight minutes past two in the wee hours of the morning when the loud knocking at the front door woke me,” she croaked, her throat knotting as though to prevent the hideous words from being uttered. “I don’t know why I thought to look at the clock on the mantelpiece. The window of my bedchamber looked out over the drive. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have heard the commotion. When I looked out . . . the entirety of Scotland Yard must have been there. I suppose the butler, maybe a footman, opened the door to them and then the corridors were filled with the echo of stomping boots and yells. The door to my bedchamber burst open—”
She gulped some sherry. Its sweetness seemed contrary to the bitter words she was uttering.
“The inspector, or whatever he was, gave me a quick look and returned to the hallway. As though in a trance I followed as far as the threshold. My mother was shrieking, her maid striving to calm her. So many men were moving about I couldn’t cross over to her. They were dragging my brothers down the hallway—I suppose they’d dragged them out of bed as well—and all I could think was that they weren’t civilized enough to wear nightshirts. How curious. Then Marcus shouted, ‘For God’s sake, man, allow us to make ourselves presentable.’
“You’ve not met Marcus
, but he can be quite intimidating. Probably comes from being the heir, as they did let them dress themselves. I remember as they marched him past, he caught my eye and said, ‘It’ll all be all right.’ And I believed him. Only it wasn’t, of course.”
Chapter 11
As much as he hated hearing the details of what had happened to her, he welcomed the opportunity to know her better, to understand her.
Her fingers were visibly shaking as she took hold of her glass and tossed back the sherry as though it would provide her with additional stamina. He considered getting her more but that would involve too much activity, and it seemed wrong all of a sudden to have any sort of movement other than the hands on the mantel clock ticking off the minutes and the writhing flames creating a soft crackling as they turned coal into ash.
Very slowly, as though she were a baby hare that would dash off if startled, he extended his glass toward her. “Here.”
Taking it, she stared into the amber. “Scotch?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never tasted scotch.”
“Then take a small sip.” Such mundane words after her devastating description of what was no doubt the worst night of her young life.
Briefly the rim of the tumbler touched her lips. He very much doubted she’d swallowed a thimbleful. She tapped her fingers one after the other in a rhythmic movement against the cut crystal. “They thought my brothers were involved, knew something. Only they weren’t, they didn’t. It was two weeks before they released them.
“A week after my father and brothers were arrested, my mother decided we should attend a ball to which we’d been invited. She argued that we should carry on as though all was normal, and that our appearance would signal that we were not involved in this conspiracy, we did not support it, and our loyalty to the Queen was above our loyalty to her husband, my father, the Duke of Wolfford.”
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