My Fair Mistress

by Tracy Anne Warren

  He laughed again. “I wish I’d been there.”

  “I wish you had been too. It’s not fair I’m the only one of us to still have that miserable taste in my mouth. Bah!”

  Grinning, he angled his head and captured her lips. Eyelids fluttering closed, she let him take her deep.

  “Mmm, I think you taste wonderful,” he murmured against her mouth. “Sweet as candy.”

  She smiled and slid her fingers into his hair. “And you taste like sin. I believe, sir, that I will have some more.”

  Barking out another laugh, he wrapped her close and did his best to comply.

  A long while later, Julianna stretched, her body lazy and relaxed and very satisfied. “Oh lord, I don’t ever want to get up.”

  “Then don’t.” He stroked a languid palm over her bare back. “Stay exactly where you are.”

  How lovely that would be, she thought. How glorious if both of us could just laze the rest of the day away, and the rest of the night as well.

  Instead, she heaved out a sigh. “I can’t. I promised Maris I would accompany her to the theater tonight. Sheridan’s The School for Scandal is playing at Drury Lane.”

  “Good play.” He shifted against the sheets and bent to dust his lips across her forehead. “Perhaps I’ll buy a seat in the gallery and entertain myself by gazing up at you in your box.”

  “Don’t you dare,” she admonished, giving him a light tap. “I’d spend the entire evening trying not to look back at you and get caught in the process. Please do not tempt me.”

  He gave a playful growl. “I like tempting you. It’s so much fun.”

  She buried her fingers in his thick, wavy hair and welcomed his kiss, ripe and warm and delicious. When she knew she’d reached her safety limit, Julianna broke away on a regretful groan. “Oh, we must stop, or I never will have the strength to leave. What time is it, do you imagine?”

  “I have no idea. Shall I check my watch?”

  “No, I’ll do it. Stay there.” Pressing a palm against his sturdy chest, she levered herself into a sitting position and crawled out of the bed.

  Not bothering to cover her nakedness, she crossed the room and reached to retrieve his waistcoat from the back of a chair, where he’d discarded it earlier. Drawing the timepiece from its silken hiding place, she nestled the smooth golden case inside her palm, finding it faintly warm to the touch. Clicking open the cover, she checked the position of the hands.

  Three seventeen. Not as late as she’d thought, but definitely time to begin dressing and start for home.

  She was about to snap the watch cover closed when her gaze fell upon the inscription engraved on its inner face. Curious, she read the words.

  Time passes, but love lasts forever.

  Yours Eternally, Pamela.

  Her heart gave a sharp, hard squeeze.

  Flicking a quick glance toward Rafe to make sure he wasn’t watching, she turned her back and read the words again.

  Who is Pamela? she thought.

  Clearly not a sister or his mother. He’d never mentioned having siblings, and she knew for a fact that his mother was dead. Besides, a watch wasn’t the kind of gift a female relation would normally give a man. And the inscription—well, it was far too personal, too intimate to be mistaken for anything other than a love token.

  A buzzing pulse raced down her spine. Does he have another lover? Worse yet, does he have a wife?

  Her stomach clenched, a faint rush of bile rising into her throat. Dear God, in all the time they’d been together, she had never thought to ask him if he was married!

  The idea was so terrible, so devastating, she swung around to confront him, anxiety sharpening her words. “Who is Pamela?”

  “Hmm?” He rolled his head and gazed sleepily at her from beneath hooded lids. “Did you find out the time?”

  “Never mind about the time.” She strode forward, the watch extended in her hand. “Who is Pamela?”

  Rafe stared for a long moment, his drowsiness vanishing in an instant as his gaze fell upon the timepiece she held. Sitting upright, he tossed back the sheet and stood, crossing to reach for his pantaloons. He said nothing as he dressed, needing the extra few moments to deal with his uncertain emotions.

  “Well?” she repeated. “Are you going to tell me or not?”

  Not, Rafe wanted to answer. Plague take it, he swore to himself, what is wrong with me, letting Julianna look at my watch? Usually, he was more vigilant about that sort of thing, since Pamela was the last person he wished to discuss with anyone, even Julianna.

  Especially Julianna.

  Cursing himself, he fastened the buttons on his falls. How could he have been so careless? Comfort, he supposed. He was comfortable with her, relaxed and at his ease in a way he was with no one else. Familiarity had made him sloppy and forgetful.

  He yanked his shirt over his head. “She’s no one, all right?”

  Her pretty brows drew together. “Since when does no one go to the trouble of inscribing a love poem inside your pocket watch? Who is she, Rafe?” She paused, vulnerability shadowing her expression. “Is she your wife?”

  Surprised, he glanced up. “Is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think, especially given your reaction.”

  He stared at the watch in her hand—his blessing and his curse. He should have disposed of the piece long ago, he knew. Sold it to a jeweler. Had the case melted down and recast. Stood at the bank of the Thames one morning and tossed the whole damned thing into the river where it could sink into a cold, watery grave.

  But he couldn’t. The watch had been Pamela’s gift to him. Destroying it would be like destroying her, defiling her memory and all she had meant to those who had loved her. Perhaps the timepiece and the words inside served as cruel reminders, but such was the penance he felt honor bound to bear.

  He remembered the day she’d given him the watch, how her cornflower blue eyes had danced with nerves and happy anticipation, her pert blond curls bouncing around her rosy cheeks. She’d been so pretty and so young. Too bloody young, only two months into her seventeenth year.

  Her father had been a watchmaker and she’d talked him into letting her have the piece, a fine new design with a sweep hand that could monitor the time down to the second. A pampered only daughter, Rafe knew she’d had her parents twisted around her little finger. But there hadn’t been a mean bone in her body. A kinder, more generous spirit had never been born. Everyone loved her; the neighborhood men tipping their hats to her in admiring respect when she passed, the women smiling as they remarked what a darling, good-natured girl she was, what a blessing to her family.

  She had known a bit about watchmaking, having spent time in her father’s shop over the years. Wanting no one else but her and Rafe to read her words, she’d told him how she’d engraved the message herself. Her heart had outpaced her skill, though, her unsteady hand forming a slight wobble on the word forever. But to him, the minor flaw only made the piece more precious.

  He’d loved it on sight, the way he’d loved her.

  He met Julianna’s dark, velvety gaze and realized he had to tell her something. She deserved that much, and probably more.

  “You can put aside your affront. She is not my wife,” he said.

  Her shoulders lowered, tension draining visibly from her body. “Still, she is someone important to you.”

  “She was important.” He shrugged into his waistcoat, fastening the golden buttons with impatient fingers. “Pamela was an artisan’s daughter from Cheapside, where I lived many years ago. We were engaged to be married.”

  “Engaged? What happened?”

  “She died, that is what happened. Now, if you don’t mind, I would prefer not to discuss the details. Hopefully I’ve managed to allay your fears.”

  “My fears, yes, but not my curiosity.” She held out the watch, letting him lift it from her palm and return it to his waistcoat pocket. “Rafe, I am sorry.”

  “Do not be. She died m
any years ago. There is no need for pity.”

  She walked to him and laid her palms against his cheeks, her touch like warm satin against the faint roughness of his skin. “What of comfort, then?” she murmured. “Would you accept a measure of that?”

  Drawing his head downward, she settled her lips against his own. Feather light, she kissed him. Softly, slowly, she wrapped him inside her embrace, one that was as gentle as a whisper, as tempting as the apple offered by Eve.

  For a moment he tried to resist, but such attempts were purely senseless. Surrendering, he hauled her naked body close and plastered her against him as he ravished her mouth.

  Accepting, she let him use her, let him focus upon her all the raw emotion boiling up inside him. Hunger raked him like a claw, demanding release, demanding the relief and oblivion he knew Julianna could provide.

  Before he was able to sweep her up in his arms, though, and carry her back to the bed, her fingers went to work on his pantaloons. With an amazing deftness, she opened the front flap and slid her hand inside.

  His belly muscles clenched as she wrapped her small, cool fingers around the hot length of his tumescence, his shaft hardening and thickening as if it truly did have a mind of its own. Stroking him, she made him moan, made his brain empty of everything but her and the exquisite sensation of her touch.

  Playing with the sacs between his legs for long seconds, she explored their shape, their size, before gliding out along his throbbing erection. Reaching the tip, she rubbed it briefly, then flicked her fingernail ever so lightly across. He shook and nearly came, barely holding on to the last of his withering control.

  Suddenly desperate, he urged her toward the bed, needing to plant himself between her thighs in the worst way. But she refused to lie down, coaxing him into a reclining position against the sheets. She often liked to be astride and he waited, expecting her to throw a leg over his hips and mount him, take him into her silky warmth from above.

  But she surprised him again by kneeling at his side and taking him into her mouth. Eyes glazed, he raised his head to watch, noting the way her long, dark hair fanned over his thighs while her lips and tongue moved like wet silk upon him.

  The sight and sensations brought him to the very brink of completion. Yet again, he somehow held back, wanting, needing to come inside her.

  Roughly, he drew her up and over him, positioning her so he could plunge fully into her velvety depths. She cried out as he pumped inside her, leaning up to suckle her breasts, her nipples tight little nubs against his tongue. He bit her lightly and rotated her hips in a wild, circular grind, going deep, then deeper still. Gripping him like a fiery glove, her inner muscles clenched tight, spasming as she began to go over.

  He thrust a few times more, fierce and penetrating. Then he was coming too, coming so furiously it felt as if his vitals were being shot straight from his body. Overwhelming and devastating, he knew he’d never experienced such magnificent pleasure, nor found such profound release.

  Cradling her to him, he held her, both of them exhausted and supremely replete.

  Gradually, awareness returned, along with a realization that the room was now bathed in a heavy twilight of shadows.

  She sat up, their bodies still connected. “Blast it, I’ve missed tea.”

  He chuckled and skimmed a hand down one of her arms. “You were too busy feasting on other things.”

  She cuffed him on the shoulder. “Behave, sir, or I shall never make the mistake of doing so again. Now, help me dress and let’s be quick. I’ve got to be going or I shall be missed.”

  “As you wish, my dear Julianna.” He drew her close for one last kiss. “And thank you.”

  Surprise lit her eyes. “For what?”

  “For making it better, sweeting. And for giving me exactly what I needed.”

  In answer, she smiled and bent down, making herself another five minutes late.

  Chapter Twelve

  COACH WHEELS HIT a rut, making the landau rock on its springs. Julianna caught her breath and reached for the inside strap, clutching the leather for a long moment until the ride became smooth once more.

  Ensconced on the matching silk upholstered seat opposite, Maris held on as well, the disturbance briefly interrupting her observation of the verdant English countryside passing by outside the windows.

  Catching each other’s gaze, Julianna and Maris exchanged smiles, then Julianna returned to her book. She wished Maris had brought her own novel to keep her mind occupied during the journey to this weekend’s country house party. But Maris had said that reading in the coach gave her a headache and she preferred a few hours of boredom to the possibility of pain.

  Maris sighed and fell to staring out the window once more.

  Turning a page, Julianna tried to concentrate on the printed words, but she’d scarcely finished a single sentence before her thoughts drifted away, settling—as they far too frequently did—upon Rafe.

  What is he doing? she wondered. How is he doing? Has he returned to London yet?

  She nearly expelled a sigh of her own, recalling the long, disquieting two weeks that had passed since he’d been called away on unexpected business at his estate in West Riding. She hadn’t even realized he owned an estate, and certainly not in the north country where he had grown up. But apparently he did, as she’d discovered the last time they met.

  “I am sorry, my dear,” Rafe had said, drawing her down next to him on the sofa in the first floor drawing room soon after her arrival, “but I cannot stay today. An emergency has cropped up at one of my estates that I see no reasonable way of avoiding.”

  “What has happened?” she asked, turning toward him in concern.

  “There was a powerful thunderstorm apparently, with a great deal of wind and lightning. A few of the cottagers’ homes lost roofs and barns, leaving people in need of temporary shelter. As for my own house, a tree, of all things, blew in through one of the library windows and caused a fair amount of damage. My steward wrote to tell me about the trouble and asked me to come as soon as may be.”

  “Certainly you must go. How long will you be away?”

  “I don’t know for certain. A week, perhaps two.” Raising her hand, he brushed his lips across her knuckles. “I would have left this morning, but I couldn’t go away, not without seeing you first.”

  Meeting his river-green gaze, she smiled softly. “I’m glad you did not.”

  His mouth had crushed hers then, joining their lips and tongues in a passionate kiss that she knew would have to last them both until his return.

  A short while later, he’d driven her toward Mayfair, then stopped to procure a hackney cab that would take her to Bond Street, where she could walk to her own waiting carriage.

  And then he’d been gone.

  Since that day, she had not heard from him—they had agreed that exchanging letters was unwise. Now, though, she wished she’d urged him to write, each day more interminable than the last.

  Does he miss me? she wondered. For as foolish and ridiculous as it might be, she had felt his absence with a fierceness that alarmed her, and with a strength she knew was dangerous to feel.

  So when Viscount Middleton invited her and Maris to join him and a dozen others for a house party at Middlebrooke Park, his estate in Essex, she had agreed. Henrietta had been included in the invitation, but had bowed out because of her dislike of road travel. And Harry, who was to have accompanied them, stayed home, confined to his bed with a dreadful spring cold.

  Before leaving the city this morning, though, Julianna had broken her agreement not to contact Rafe, penning him a note to let him know that she was away and would return at first week. Assuming, of course, he reached London again before she did.

  The landau’s wheels rumbled over a bit of rough earth, the perfume of wild lilacs wafting briefly into the coach’s interior. Sweet and luxurious, the scent, together with another one of Maris’s poignant sighs, proved powerful enough to disturb Julianna’s musings.


  Glancing across at her sister, Julianna couldn’t help but notice the downward turn to Maris’s lips, nor miss the sheen of melancholy haunting her usually lively gaze. For a girl traveling into the countryside for a weekend of relaxed entertainment, she did not look happy or excited.

  Julianna gave up all pretense of reading and closed her book, setting it next to her on her seat. “Is everything all right?”

  Maris glanced over, sadness visible in her gaze. Her expression cleared seconds later and she smiled. Or rather she forced herself to smile, Julianna realized.

  “Of course things are fine,” Maris declared in a cheery voice. “Why would they not be?”

  Now I know something is amiss, Julianna thought. Maris was generally cheerful, but never that cheerful.

  “Are you sure?” Julianna pressed.

  Maris stared for a long moment, emotions racing like a dark river in her eyes. Still, she remained silent.

  “Are you concerned about the weekend perhaps?” Julianna queried. “I know you may have certain expectations, which are only natural given the circumstances. Viscount Middleton has been extremely attentive over the past few weeks, making a point of singling you out. And now this invitation to his home. Any woman would be wondering if an offer of marriage is imminent.”

  Maris frowned and stared down at her clasped hands. “Yes, that is what Cousin Henrietta said. She is sure he will come up to scratch during our visit.”

  “Are you worried she is wrong and that he may not?”

  When her sister said nothing again, a new speculation dawned.

  “Or are you worried that he will?”

  Up flashed Maris’s eyes, a hint of guilt in their depths. “He is very charming and handsome. I should be ecstatic at the prospect of being his bride.”

  “But you are not?”

  “I do not know,” she said, pleating her skirt with her fingers. “I like him, but he is so much older and I…I just am not sure.”

  Julianna had told herself she wouldn’t meddle, but how could she not when Maris was so clearly in need of guidance? “If you are not sure, then you are not ready. If he asks, you must refuse.”