“I did,” he admitted. “I behaved quite shamefully. I wish I could go back and change it, but I can’t. The disgraceful affair went on for two years. She always visited me; I never visited her. Of course, unbeknownst to me, everyone in the house knew of it, with the exception, I hope, of my brother and sister.”
“Did you love her, Ben?”
“No, indeed.”
“Not at all?”
“Less than that. She began to behave as if she were the mistress of my house. She began to sleep in my stepmother’s room, and wear her clothes and jewelry. She began to—playfully, of course—ask me when I was going to make an honest woman of her.”
“Whatever did you tell her?”
“The truth. That I never intended to marry at all. When I lost my arm, I decided that my brother would be my heir.”
“But I thought you came to Bath to find a wife,” she said, puzzled.
“I did. My circumstances have changed. My brother can no longer be my heir.”
“Oh, no!” she cried softly. “Did he die, your brother?”
“No, no. He married a very wealthy girl. His father-in-law bought him an earldom. Now, if I die without a son to carry on, the baronetcy will be completely consumed by the new title. I have no choice but to marry.”
“I see,” she said, even though she did not see at all. “And that was the only woman you’ve ever had?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t believe you.”
He chuckled ruefully. “If you had seen the embarrassing way in which the affair ended, you would believe. No sane person would ever put himself in such a position again.”
“She made a scene, did she?”
“Rather,” he said dryly. “She threatened to accuse me of assaulting her, if you please, unless I married her. Naturally, I refused. She made good on her threat. She went straight to the vicar with her sordid tale. She even tore her own clothes and put scratches all over herself. Fortunately, for me, she had made enemies of all my servants. One and all, they refuted her fantastic lies. I was exonerated. But I never forgot, and I never forgave.”
“And you’ve been a saint ever since?”
He sighed. “I may have visited a brothel or two,” he admitted. “But I never—I never had carnal knowledge of any of the inmates.”
She laughed in sheer disbelief. “You did, of course!”
“No,” he insisted. “I was afraid I might contract a disease.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “If you weren’t doing the deed, what were you doing?”
“I would allow them to palate me,” he said, “but that’s all.”
“I have no idea what that means. Sounds awful.”
“Not at all. I used their mouths,” he said.
She stared at him in amazement. He wasn’t even blushing. “That’s disgusting!”
“I suppose that depends on your point of view,” he said coldly. “Some of these young ladies are very skilled.”
“I would never do anything like that,” she declared. “It’s indecent.”
“That,” he said, “is the whole point.”
“Those poor girls! I hope you paid them well.”
“I did. But enough about me,” he went on airily. “What about you?”
“Me!”
“I’ve told you everything,” he insisted. “It’s only fair that you tell me everything.”
“For your information, I am a pure virgin,” she said hotly.
“I never said you weren’t. I know I am not the first to kiss you.”
“Oh, that,” she said, blushing. “That’s only kissing.”
“You must have had offers,” he said. “A beautiful girl like you.”
“Well, I’ve been pawed at, if that’s what you mean.” She looked uncomfortable, but forged ahead. “There was a man who got his hand inside my dress once, but I got free of him.”
“Are you referring to me?” he asked sharply.
“Oh, no,” she hastened to assure him. “He wasn’t a nice man like you.”
A nerve twitched in his jaw. “Did he hurt you?”
She shrugged. “I told my brothers. I’m not exactly sure what they did to him in Phoenix Park, but he was a changed man after that. You never heard of him bothering the lasses again.”
“Good.”
“And then, when I was about sixteen, there was a boy at a dance who got a bit carried away. He was a nice boy, though. I could tell he was really trying to control himself. He danced me outside and shed tears on my best dress—except it wasn’t tears, if you know what I mean. I told my brothers, and no one ever saw him alive again. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“You mean they—? They killed him?”
“I suppose they did. Two weeks later, they found him, when they were dragging the bog for Connery’s mule. He was only seventeen. The boy, not the mule. It was really awful. If I’d known they were going to kill him, I never would have breathed a word. After that, I was the most respected girl in Ireland.”
“So I would imagine!” said Benedict. “I wonder what your brothers would do to me if they were here.”
“I wouldn’t let them hurt you,” she said fiercely. “They’d have to throw me in the bog with you. That’s the truth of it. Anyway, my brothers are gone. I’ve no one at all to defend me.”
“You have me,” he said firmly.
She laughed. “But ’tis yourself I need protection from the most!”
“No,” he said, frowning. “I will never harm you. You have my word.”
The grim story of the boy in the bog had cast a pall over the evening.
“It’s late,” she said, closing the book. “I’d better go.”
“You only read three pages,” he protested.
“Oh, bollocks!” she said. “That’s only sixpence.”
She looked at him, shame-faced. “Could I ask you to give me a bit more?”
“We agreed on tuppence a page, Miss Cherry. If you want more money, you will just have to stay and read.”
She shook her head. “I can’t stay. Please, Ben! I hate to ask you, but I really need it. You’ve no idea!”
His manner changed instantly as he saw how distressed she was. “Are you so badly in debt?” he asked, thinking about the thousand pounds he had given her just days before. “Of course! How much do you need?”
“I don’t know. Maybe three shillings? That’s what I earned last night.”
“Three shillings?” He almost laughed. “Are you seriously this worried about three shillings?”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “If I show up with nothing but sixpence in my fist, Nora will think we’re up to something! She already does think we’re up to something. It’s no laughing matter,” she assured him.
“Who, exactly, is Nora? And why do we care what she thinks?”
“Nora is…Well, I suppose you’d call her a servant.”
He laughed. “For heaven’s sake. Tell her to go boil her head. It’s none of her business.”
She frowned at him. “Well, let me put it to you this way, Ben. If Nora thinks I’m sleeping with you, she’ll raise holy hell before she ever lets me out of the house again, and I won’t be able to come here anymore and read to you, if that matters!”
He went to his desk immediately and retrieved a gold sovereign from the money tray.
“That’s too much,” she complained. “She’d know we were up to no good if I started bringing home gold! She’s very suspicious-minded. She’d go straight to Father Mallone and blab. He’d call me out in Mass. I’d be shamed beyond all shame.”
“Three shillings,” he said, counting out the correct amount.
“And the sixpence I earned,” she said quickly. “I did read three pages.”
“And sixpence,” he agreed, wondering if things could get any more ridiculous.
She pocketed the sixpence, then held up the three shillings. “This is only to show Nora,” she said so seri
ously he didn’t dare laugh. “I didn’t earn it. I’ll bring it back to you tomorrow.”
It rained hard the following night. He would not have blamed her if she had decided not to make the cold, wet journey to his house. But in the morning, he woke up with three shillings on his pillow.
Chapter 9
Anyone would have thought that Tuesday evening was the most important night of Cosy Vaughn’s life. She spent most of the day bathing, washing and drying her long blond hair, and fussing over her clothes like a nervous bride.
“It’s only a stupid concert,” Allie reminded her brutally as she watched her sister at her dressing table. Cosy was in her slip and petticoats. She planned to put her dress on at the last possible moment to avoid wrinkling it.
Cosy held up two different earrings to her ears and looked in the mirror, trying to decide between them. “Which ones do you think, Allie? Me rubies or me sapphires?”
Neither matched the gown she had bought especially for this night, and both were glaring fakes. Her mother’s jewels were long gone now. One by one, they had all been sold to help pay her father’s debts. Without them, she felt like a knight going into battle without armor.
The gown she had bought was all wrong. She had known that even as she bought it, but it was half price, and she could not bring herself to spend more when she could spend less. Last year’s model, it was a bilious, unflattering shade of green, and the shop girl had been so eager to unload it, it was practically a gift. The new models were being cut to resemble a woman’s natural curves, with a nipped-in waist and a full, bell-like skirt, but the new models were costly. The green gown was in the old style, with the waist immediately under the breasts. Not only was it ugly and out of style but it emphasized that Cosima had no bosom.
The only nice thing about it was how little it cost.
“I should have learned to sew.” She sighed.
“You were not to know the colonel would gamble his fortune away,” Nora said soothingly, as she fussed ineffectually over the artificial flowers in the young lady’s hair.
Ben always looked impeccable, Cosima thought miserably, and he had such beautiful clothes. Nothing garish, of course. His style was understated, but he had the best of everything. He was sure to be embarrassed to be seen with her in the ugly green dress, in last year’s model. She kept putting off the moment when she had to put it on.
“Let this be a lesson to you, Allie: learn to sew.”
“It’s not fair,” Allie said sullenly. “You get to go to concerts in the Upper Rooms, and I have to go to school all day, and then sit at home all night with Mama.”
“Aye,” Nora said darkly, “but your sister has to go with the ciotog.”
“I think he’s nice,” Allie protested. “He gave me sixpence when he came yesterday.”
Cosima frowned. “What’s he giving you money for?” she demanded, standing up to insert her stockinged feet into her high-heeled evening slippers.
Allie shrugged. “He said all the other young ladies at school would have pocket money.”
“I don’t want you taking money from him,” said Cosima.
“Why not?”
“Why not? We’ve already taken a thousand pounds from him, that’s why,” Cosy snapped. “Sixpence, indeed! When I was your age threepenny was the most I ever got—and that on Christmas morning! And we had money then, lashes of it!” she exaggerated. “Now, where are me pearls, Nora?” she murmured, rummaging in her dressing table.
“Your pearls!” Allie said belligerently. “They’re as much mine as they are yours. Granny Vaughn left them to whichever one of us marries first.”
Cosy laughed as Nora opened the black velvet box containing her one piece of good jewelry. “And I suppose you think you’ll marry before I do, Miss Allie?”
“I might!” Allie cried, snatching the pearls from her sister’s hand and sprinting for the door. “I’m prettier than you are, and I’m nicer, too.”
“You get back here!”
It was a ridiculous command, and not to be heeded. The chase was on.
Lady Agatha gasped in fright as her younger daughter ran through the drawing-room, followed by her furious elder daughter. Hindered by her long petticoats and her high-heeled shoes, Cosima had no choice but to leap over the sofa and tackle the younger girl. Older and stronger, she had no difficulty pinning her sister to the floor.
“It’s not fair!” Allie screamed from the floor as her sister pried her chubby fingers from the necklace. “You get everything! Mama!”
Lady Agatha fluttered helplessly on the sofa as her eldest daughter stood up, victorious. Cosy was in the act of clasping the pearl necklace around her throat when she noticed that her mother had not been sitting in the drawing-room alone.
Benedict rose from his chair and cleared his throat apologetically. Resplendent in evening dress, he was carrying a nosegay of white hothouse roses. “Good evening, Miss Vaughn,” he said gravely.
“Oh, God!” Cosy resisted the urge to cover her exposed upper body with both hands. “You should have made your presence known,” she said crossly. Allie climbed to her feet, gleefully observing the spectacle of her sister curtseying to a male visitor in her underclothing.
If Benedict realized that Cosima was standing there in her petticoats and slip he gave no sign. But then, they were very nice undergarments. She had bargained for them quite ferociously. “These are for you,” he said, holding out the nosegay.
“He brought you roses in March,” Lady Agatha cried. “They must have cost a fortune.”
Reluctantly, Cosima went forward to take the flowers.
Benedict looked at her steadily. He could not decide if he preferred her as a redhead or a blonde. Fortunately, he did not have to decide. “I’ve hired a chair. Shall we go, Miss Vaughn?”
“Do I look ready to go to you?” she asked incredulously.
“I think you look very…nice,” he replied. “Is that a new ensemble?”
It was, in fact, the ensemble that “Miss Cherry” had worn at her debut. Cosima would die of shame if he ever knew she had traipsed across the park in her underwear.
Allie collapsed into giggles. Benedict, being under the impression that all young females giggle almost unceasingly and without provocation, saw nothing amiss. Determined to keep him in ignorance, Cosima said simply, “Yes; very new. But I’m not squeezing up into a chair with you,” she added belligerently. “I’ll walk.”
“It rained last night. You’ll ruin your shoes,” he told her.
“You let me worry about my shoes,” she said crossly.
“As you wish,” he said stiffly. “I will dismiss the chairman, and we will walk.”
“You expect me to go to a concert with you? Like this?”
“Of course not. Fetch your cloak.” He took out his watch and looked at it.
“I’ll get my cloak,” she said.
She ran down the hall to her room and studied herself anxiously in the mirror. To her relief, she looked pristine and not slatternly in her white silk undergarments. In this case, being thin and flat-chested was a blessing; nothing untoward wobbled to attract unwelcome attention. No unsightly rolls of flesh lay exposed. She had good shoulders, and a nice, long neck. The pearls helped, too.
Nora picked up the green dress.
“No,” said Cosy. “Just my cloak, Nora.”
“You can’t go out in your shift, Miss Cosy!” Nora cried, shocked.
“I have to, Nora. I will not have the ciotog thinking he’s seen me in my underwear!”
“But he has seen you in your underwear, Miss Cosy,” Nora said, puzzled.
“Not if I wear it out, he hasn’t!” Cosima answered with indisputable logic.
She held his arm tightly as they entered the Upper Rooms.
“You’re not nervous, are you?” He sounded amused.
Cosy was used to people staring at her. People had stared at her all her life. Even when she was a child, complete strangers would come up to her, pat her ch
eeks, and tell her what a pretty girl she was. But now she was terrified that, at any moment, someone would point out that she was wearing only a petticoat. “I don’t know anyone here,” she said.
“You know Lady Dalrymple and her son and daughter, I believe.”
Her fingers dug into his arm. “They’re going to snub me.”
“No, indeed,” he said, and, to her amazement, he was right. Lady Dalrymple greeted her warmly. Freddie Carteret kissed her hand. And Millie Carteret, dressed in a very daring gown of ultramarine taffeta, kissed the air next to her cheek.
Benedict was enjoying himself immensely. The pleasure of escorting a beautiful girl into a room breathlessly waiting to see her had never been his before. He swept through the crowd into the Octagon Room, where he presented her to the first lady of Bath.
Lady Matlock, herself warmly dressed in blue velvet, snapped her fan angrily as she looked at the Irish girl. That young ass, Lord Ludham, had not exaggerated; Miss Vaughn had the face of an angel. The countess would have preferred to give the Irish upstart the Cut Direct, but when Sir Benedict Wayborn made such a point of bringing the girl over, what could one do? One was trapped into civility. “You are Irish, my dear?” she said with a faint sniff.
“I am.”
“Do you play the harp? Of course, you do. All Irish girls do. You must come and play for me in the Crescent. I am excessively fond of music, but, alas, my poor health did not permit me to learn. My daughter, Rose.”
With a calculating eye, she watched Miss Vaughn shake hands with her daughter. It was most irritating not to be able to detect a flaw in the Irish girl. Her face was perfection. Her creamy, radiant skin was undeniable. Even her teeth were good; small, straight, and unstained. While not quite as décolleté as Rose’s wisp of lace, her white dress showed off a light, pleasing figure. Rose, even though she was endowed with a larger bosom and a respectable dowry, had her work cut out for her. Many gentlemen preferred the virginal look to the outright sensuality offered by a figure like Rose’s. Lady Matlock made a mental note that her daughter needed more rigorous corseting.
“So you are Westlands’s cousin, the famous Miss Vaughn!” cried Rose.
Rules for Being a Mistress Page 13