The Mistake

by Lily Maxton

  “Not permanently, though I imagine Aengus thought the transformation would be permanent.”

  “And he did it?”

  “Aye, he did it. He loved her—what choice did he have? For three days and nights they were swans and they put everyone to sleep with the beauty of their song. Afterward, they transformed back into humans and lived as husband and wife.”

  When Julia spoke, her voice was quiet and thoughtful. “It would be rather nice to have someone turn into a bird just to be with you, wouldn’t it?”

  I would do it for you. In an instant. In a heartbeat—in less than a heartbeat.

  I would do it for you.

  Of course, he didn’t say anything quite that foolish. What he said was, “It would be.” With his eyes closed, he listened to the rustle of her clothes and her footsteps pattering on the wooden kitchen floor. He opened his eyes after a minute, when he realized he was listening to nothing but silence.

  She was standing at the other end of the settee, looking down at him with an unfathomable expression on her face. She was dressed, but her hair was wet and loose. The damp had darkened it to black and it fell about her shoulders, leaving little trickles of water against her neck and collarbone.

  His chest ached. He wanted nothing more than to draw her into his arms. Was this how Caer had looked to Aengus in his dreams? Maybe with his next telling, Caer would have water-soaked hair. And dark blue eyes. He hadn’t mentioned her eyes.

  “I don’t have to stay here.”

  He sat up slowly, never taking his gaze away from her. “Do you want to leave?” She shook her head. The gesture was almost infinitesimal, but he caught it. “Then stay.”

  “I don’t—” she cleared her throat. “This will not be a permanent arrangement. I must leave within a few weeks, as soon as my man of business finds a house that will suit me.”

  He wanted to ask why it couldn’t be a permanent arrangement. Did she not realize how battered she left him, sweeping in and out of his life like a lightning storm? But things were different now. When he was sixteen, he’d thought he would forget her. He’d thought he could. He now knew how stupid he’d been. She would haunt his dreams, like Caer had haunted Aengus.

  Why can’t I be enough for you? Why am I never enough? he wanted to demand. But his lips wouldn’t form the words. They would leave him too open. Too defenseless.

  “Stay,” was all he said.

  She must have thought he meant only for a while because she nodded. Adam didn’t correct her assumption, but his mind was already leaping ahead, trying to think of a way to convince her to stay with him forever.

  Chapter Eleven

  Julia was happier than she’d ever been. She thought she’d been happy enough in London—before she’d gotten tangled up with Riverton, at least—but it wasn’t true. She’d been comfortable and content with her former lovers, and that was all she’d been. It was an imitation of happiness—something like it, but paler, and shallower.

  There’d been a void. A piece missing.

  She’d never been completely relaxed with those other men. There was an aspect of playacting to their encounters, which she’d always accepted as part of her profession. It hadn’t bothered her before. But at heart, when stripped down and when other considerations were stripped away, Julia was a woman who liked silliness. She liked funny songs and bawdy poems that made her laugh too loudly.

  And no sophisticated aristocrat wanted a mistress who was prone to loud laughter.

  So, she’d altered herself and tried to convince herself that it didn’t bother her.

  But in the two weeks since Adam had asked her to stay, they’d regained the closeness of their lost friendship, and she felt more herself than she had in years. They made up ridiculous stories and laughed freely with each other. They played cards every night, even though Julia trounced Adam three times out of four—she was adamant the one time out of four that he was the victor was a result of her taking pity on him. She painted and was delighted when she noticed the finished paintings mysteriously appearing on the walls of Adam’s cottage, no matter how atrocious they were.

  She was happier than she’d ever been. But at the same time, she felt like a circus performer walking a tightrope. Because this kind of happiness wasn’t meant to last forever. At least not for her. Long ago, she’d given up her chance at having a family like the one she’d lost as a child. It didn’t matter how much her wretched heart might yearn for it…especially now.

  The future was a storm cloud on the western horizon. It would find her. It would swallow her.

  And she would plummet.

  One night, Julia and Adam were sitting across from each other at the dining room table. Julia shuffled a deck of cards between her hands. Over and over.

  “Are we going to play?” he asked.

  She looked down abruptly. She’d nearly forgotten she held the cards. She set them down gingerly and cleared her throat. “A letter arrived. A house has been found that matches my requirements. The letter says it will be ready to let by the end of the month, if I decide I want it.”

  “The end of the month,” he said flatly.

  “Yes, that’s what I said.” Her voice came out slightly shrill.

  “You don’t have to leave,” he said.

  Yes, she did. Yes, emphatically.

  She straightened in her chair. “I must. Why, were you thinking you could keep me as your mistress?” She forced the words from her tight throat. Better to see that light fade from his eyes for something she’d done deliberately than to wait and hope and dread the inevitable fall. “Adam, you could hardly afford me.”

  He stared at her. “I was actually thinking of a more permanent arrangement.”

  She mouthed the words silently. Permanent arrangement. Fear pulsed through her. “If you mean what I think you mean, I’d rather not speak of it.”

  “Why not?” he challenged. “You’re between protectors, and you can’t be a mistress forever, anyway.”

  It would solve everything. Adam would realize he wasn’t the father when the babe came early, but at that point it wouldn’t matter. Her child would be legitimate and she wouldn’t have to worry about whether she could placate Riverton or not.

  So, why couldn’t she bring herself to reach out and grab that chance with both hands? She’d nearly done it before, in a moment of desperation—but that was during those few moments she’d thought she was willing to lie to him about the child. Now she knew she couldn’t do that to him.

  If she told him right now that she was carrying another man’s child, and not just any man but his employer, someone he didn’t even like, would he rescind his offer? Or worse, would he let the offer stand out of a sense of obligation?

  If it were someone else, maybe it wouldn’t matter that he might marry her because he felt obligated. But this wasn’t someone else. This was Adam.

  “I’m out of a job, so it follows that I must want to be a wife?” she snapped. “It’s just one kind of entrapment to another.”

  “Entrapment? You told me you had a good life. There must have been some aspects of being a mistress that you enjoyed.” he said.

  “I…” she paused, staring at him from across the table. “Do you truly want to know?”

  His jaw was clenched, but he nodded.

  She considered. “I liked being the mistress of a house, even though none of them were actually mine. And I liked most of the men I chose. I even considered them friends. In a manner of speaking. The nature of the relationship doesn’t exactly lend itself to an honest friendship.”

  Adam laid his hand on the surface of the table, his fingers spread wide. He stared down at it. He asked slowly, as though he had to force the words out, “How many have there been?”

  A beat of silence pulsed between them. “Five,” she said.

  His hand relaxed. He looked almost…relieved. As though he’d been expecting more.

  “It’s unfair, isn’t?” she said after a moment. “If a man said he’d known
five lovers, no one would even blink an eye. But even one lover makes a woman a whore.”

  He looked up at her. “Don’t call yourself that.”

  A small smile caught her lips. “It’s what everyone else calls me.”

  “Not me,” he said.

  His response warmed her, though it shouldn’t. “How many—” She paused. “How many women have you…” She didn’t finish the question.

  He looked down at his hand. After a reluctant moment, he answered, “Just one.”

  She felt stricken. Only one. It wasn’t that she was hoping he’d had dozens of lovers, of course, but two or three seemed infinitely better than one. Especially… When she didn’t respond, he looked up.

  “Cassandra,” she whispered, which was foolish. Obviously it was Cassandra.

  He nodded.

  “You—” She licked her lips. “You must care for her deeply.”

  “I do care for her,” he admitted. “We’re good friends.”

  She didn’t want to know. But she had to know. She couldn’t stop the question from tumbling, rushing from her lips. “Do you love her?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Did you fall in love with every man you bedded?”

  She shook her head. “That wasn’t an answer,” she murmured, her heart sinking.

  He smiled slightly. “I was trying to make a point. The answer is no.”

  She chewed on her lower lip. Her hand darted out to grab the deck of cards of its own volition, and she began turning them over again.

  “Did you love any of the men you bedded?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied. “Love is a weakness in my profession.” Affection was fine—good, even—as long as it was controlled. But once a courtesan lost that control and crossed the line from affection to love, she was setting herself up for heartbreak.

  His shoulders sagged, releasing the tension he’d held there. He was relieved by her answer, just as she’d been relieved when he’d said he didn’t love Cassandra.

  Mute laughter rose within her. What where they doing? What were they thinking? It felt as if they’d started a dance that would never end. They would spend their lives yearning and surging forward, then falling back again, defeated. Until one of them decided to end the dance for good.

  “Why did you leave?” he asked, his voice hoarse. He sat a little straighter in his chair.

  “What?”

  “Fifteen years ago,” he said, “I kissed you, and the next day you were gone.” He laughed, low and rueful. “Was the kiss that awful?”

  Her hand hovered over the card deck. “No.” She shook her head, but wouldn’t look at him. A slow, aching wistfulness swept her. “It was that wonderful.”

  He was silent for a long moment. “Then why?”

  She practically stared a hole into the cards. “After that kiss…after I realized how you felt, and after I realized I wanted you in the same way…I wanted to stay with you. More than anything. But I knew what would happen to us if I did.”

  “What would have happened?” he asked roughly, almost angrily.

  “We were practically children. I would have conceived and you would have taken some horrible job down at the docks or somewhere equally vile, just to support us. Then I would have kept having more children, and you would have worn yourself down working at a job you hated. We would have lived in squalor and it would have eaten away every good thing we’d ever felt for one another. We would have resented each other for the rest of our lives, for that one decision. Made because of that one, single kiss.”

  She painted a bleak picture. It was a realistic one. That was what happened to people from their part of town who didn’t find some way to crawl out. It might actually have been a more generous bleak picture—it was quite likely Adam wouldn’t have been able to get steady work, at all.

  “I might have found a way,” he insisted. “You didn’t even give me the chance.”

  She only shook her head miserably. If they’d acted on their feelings they would have held each other back. Would never have achieved what either of them had in their lives.

  “What about you?” she challenged. “You certainly wouldn’t be the head gardener of a grand estate now. You love all this…and being with me would have ruined any chance at having it.”

  “Tell me what happened, after you left.” He stared at her so intently that she told him everything.

  “It was— It all happened so quickly. So easily. Like a whirlwind. I look back on that time now, and I’m still astounded it didn’t take more work on my part.” At his blank stare, she said, “I knew I was beautiful. I could tell by the way some of the men would watch me.”

  She tapped her fingers on the table. Before that, she’d never thought much about her looks—she’d had more important concerns. But she’d quickly realized she could use her looks to her advantage.

  She continued quietly, “I thought if I could catch the attention of someone wealthy, it wouldn’t matter that my father had just died. It wouldn’t matter that I couldn’t be with you. I’d have money, and I’d have security—I wouldn’t be at the whim of fate, as all poor people are, and that was what I wanted. I wanted to be the master of my own fate. The only place I knew I could get into where there might be wealthy men was a gaming hell.”

  Adam made a guttural noise, and she remembered what Molly had told her. He went after you, you know.

  Julia swallowed. “Once I’d managed to find one, and I was just standing there like a fool staring at everything, one of the prostitutes who worked there noticed me. She was a nice woman. Maggie was her name. She said Margaret was too fancy for the likes of her. When she asked me what I was doing there, and I told her I wanted to be a wealthy man’s mistress, she laughed, and said, ‘I’ve never been only one man’s mistress, but I know some things that could help you out.’ And she did help me. She told me what she knew. She told me how to seduce a man, and what they liked once they’d been caught. She told me how to prevent pregnancy.” Which Julia had done, meticulously inserting a sponge doused in vinegar before every visit with a paramour. Which had worked for years, until one day, for whatever reason, it simply hadn’t…and with the last man she would have chosen. “Maggie let me stay in her room for a few days. I had to duck into the closet when she was…entertaining someone. But I would crack open the closet door and watch what she did with them, so I could use it later.”

  Julia glanced up. His jaw was clenched.

  “What were you thinking when you watched them?” he asked.

  She lifted her shoulders. “I didn’t know what to think,” she answered, thinking back. “I felt I was doing something wrong. But at the same time, I was intrigued. It was…confusing, I suppose. A proper girl would surely have been horrified.”

  He nodded contemplatively. “But it was better for you that you weren’t.”

  Her shoulders relaxed and relief swept her. He understood. He didn’t condemn her for being open to the possibilities rather than scandalized.

  “What happened then?” he asked.

  “Four days later, Maggie came to fetch me and told me my chance had just walked through the door. In the gaming hell she pointed out Lord Stanley, a young baron who was unattached. He spent a lot at the card tables, she said, but he also won a lot, and she thought he seemed like a decent man.

  “So I approached him. I flirted with him. He came back the next day, and the day after, and the day after that. The next night he asked me to leave with him, and we went to his townhouse. He took my virginity, but he was quite gentle about it. He asked me to be his mistress. He told me he’d never had a mistress before. He was only eighteen.” She exhaled. “I said yes.”

  Adam swallowed.

  On the table, her fingers curled into a fist and her knuckles whitened. “I liked him the best, I think. He was kind, and he treated me well, but he was also a little reckless. Eight years after I became his mistress, he got himself killed in a duel after he accused another man of cheating at cards.” She shook
her head, shaking away the old sense of loss that had crept back upon her. “After that, I attracted men with higher titles, but I couldn’t keep them for as long—a couple of years at the most, until they grew restless. Then I met Riverton.”

  Adam’s jaw flexed.

  She met his gaze unflinchingly. “That’s what my life has been. There’s no more to tell.”

  She feigned calmness, but her pulse had quickened more and more as she talked. She’d never told those things to anyone, and here she was, revealing her questionable past to the one person who could truly hurt her with his condemnation.

  “I found you at the gaming hell,” he said.

  She clasped her hands together tightly. “Molly told me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Molly needs to mind her own business.”

  They both smiled, but Julia’s smile faded quickly. “You saw me there.”

  He nodded. “With Lord Stanley. I saw him kiss you. I wanted to tear you away from him. I wanted to kill him.”

  “But you left instead.” She sounded accusatory, even to her own ears. Warmth crept into her cheeks. What right did she have to accuse him?

  “If I’d approached you, would you have left him and gone home with me?”

  Their eyes melded for an endless moment. “I would have wanted to,” she whispered.

  “But you wouldn’t have,” he stated. “I think a part of me always knew you would leave one day. You were too scared.”

  She stiffened. “Scared?”

  “You craved wealth because it was something you could surround yourself with, protect yourself with, so nothing could ever hurt you again. I knew I couldn’t give you that, but Lord Stanley could. So I let you go.”

  “You never regretted it?”

  “Every day of my life,” he said softly. “But it wouldn’t have changed anything. Did you ever think about me?”

  She shook her head and saw the play of despair across his face—despair that wounded her as much as it wounded him. “I didn’t let myself think about you. But I dreamed of you.”

  With a surge of agitated energy, he was instantly on his feet. He rounded the corner of the table, and she turned in her chair to watch him warily.