Scandal's Mistress

by Bronwyn Stuart

  “Yesterday, when Bruce took Mrs. Belluccini to her lodgings to pick up her belongings, did he happen to mention anything that I would want to know?”

  “Bruce did not take her to her residence.”

  “Then where did she go?”

  “He took her to the seamstress as you directed and then to several feminine frippery establishments on the return trip. Mrs. Belluccini was let out a few blocks from here and walked the rest of the distance.”

  Justin nodded, turned his back and walked to the doors leading out to the terrace. She was a mystery at every corner. He could simply ask what she was doing traipsing about between his roses but he had a feeling if she wanted him to know more she would have told him. He didn’t want to raise her ire again with the question. She was already so skittish and nervous, as if she could change her mind and bolt at any moment.

  Perhaps she will.

  That thought had also crossed his mind several times. What if she was in a spot of bother and merely needed a roof over her head for a few days? It would kill him if she left at the end of the week.

  He would be furious.

  He would have to go after her, find her, bring her back.

  He shook his head to dispel the negative thoughts and wondered what she did that very second. She hadn’t come down to breakfast and now was the time ladies usually took tea and welcomed callers. Was she still abed? Or was she too scared to alight? He knew what he would do if she was already his mistress in truth. He would climb the stairs three at a time and slip beneath the blankets with her.

  Justin wished he was a less honorable man. He was not made of stone and her just being under his roof tested him to the very edge of his limits. He now understood why men of the ton set their women up in houses across town, out of reach.

  Well, if she wasn’t going to come down, he would go up.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, he didn’t want to admit that his blood heated and his heart pumped a little harder in anticipation. Standing in front of her closed door, he wiped his suddenly sweaty palms on his trousers and then knocked softly.

  No reply.

  Surely she wasn’t still sleeping? He placed an ear to the door but heard no sound. Checking the handle, he found it unlocked. Slowly and silently he opened the door a crack and called her name.

  Still no answer. Heart in his throat, Justin pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside the darkened room.

  “Carmalina?” he called, louder this time.

  Still no sound. Where the hell was she? He checked the bathroom but still no Carmalina.

  “Newberry!” he roared as he ran down the stairs. How could the man not have mentioned that Carmalina had left? “Newberry!”

  Newberry stood by the foot of the stair, only slightly perturbed by all the shouting. “Sir?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Mrs. Belluccini left early this morning, milord.”

  “How early?”

  “Around seven.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this when I was breaking my fast?”

  Newberry’s face relaxed before his very eyes, which infuriated him all the more.

  “You didn’t ask, milord.”

  “Where did she go?” Justin grated through painfully clenched teeth.

  “I didn’t ask, milord.”

  “The next time the lady leaves this house, I want to know where she is going and when she is coming back. Do you understand?”

  Newberry didn’t reply, only nodded and walked away.

  Justin stood at the base of the stairs, clenched and flexed his fingers. Where the devil would she have gone and at that hour? A strange helplessness and another emotion he didn’t want to identify washed over him. What if she was toying with him? What if she had some other man out there that she met with, laughing behind his back at what a ninny he was?

  Why did he have to keep thinking she was a bad person? That she was the one with the plan? It could have been the fact that all he’d done in the past ten years had been nefarious and he couldn’t trust himself or anyone else, but he didn’t see that as the problem.

  Because something is missing from her story.

  Yes, he knew she hadn’t told him the whole story. Something occupied her mind and worried her. She may have a creditable mask when in his presence, but he was a master at peering through the social faces of the women around him.

  Long, frustrated strides carried him back to his study where he sat down and scribbled a quick note to an old friend. He had to get to the heart of some of his questions so that when the time came, he could truly enjoy his nightingale. He wasn’t generally suspicious by nature but, when he considered her strange behavior, Justin couldn’t help but feel something was afoot.

  After he’d sent a footman with the note to be dispatched immediately, he leaned back and steepled his fingers over his chest. In their agreement, she had not stipulated that he was not to get to know her. He was the one who’d pressed that particular condition. It left him free to ask as many questions about his songbird as he wished. Just not to her. He couldn’t risk her finding out exactly how infatuated he was with her puzzling mysteries, for then she would gain the upper hand and that role was his.

  He would figure her out. Justin always rose to a challenge and Carmalina would prove no different.

  * * *

  The air was cold against her cheeks as Carmalina closed her eyes and breathed deep the scents surrounding her. Roses, lavender, fresh-cut grass. All smells of the outdoors. The same smells as home. Other than the sun and the moon, it was the only thing England had in common with Italy. Not that the sun shone all that much in the dingy city of London and not that you could see much of it even when it did shine.

  Carmalina was stalling. She knew it was craven to hide. Once Justin found her missing, he would recognize her for a coward too and it wouldn’t help her situation when she eventually had to return to his house. But hide she would until her heart didn’t gallop in her chest, until the vice that gripped her every muscle and nerve eased and she could finally draw breath again.

  Her eyelids fluttered open once more as she took in the sights around her. Finely dressed children ran around on the grass, scolded by nannies and governesses. A small boy lay on his back and stared up into the clouds overhead. At what he looked it didn’t seem to matter. He appeared content.

  From her position under a huge tree in the farthest corner of the park, she had a view of everyone who came and went. Everyone who lingered and played and frolicked. She wished she could lift her skirts and run with the children but that would cause unwanted attention and she didn’t need that today. Did she?

  She wondered why she couldn’t do what she would have if this park was across the road from her previous lodgings. She would have tucked her skirts up to run and kick the ball with the neighborhood children. They would laugh until they could no longer breathe and then collapse in an exhausted, happy heap. Why should her new Mayfair address mean she should change who she truly was?

  She could not let Justin or their agreement have that sort of influence over her character. Just because in six days’ time she would be a fallen woman in all ways possible didn’t mean she had to affect the stiff upper lip of other ton mistresses. She was different from them and had to remember it.

  Carmalina told herself repeatedly it was Justin and the smoldering way he stared at her that had changed her after only twenty-four short hours. She felt feminine and sexual even though she hadn’t any experience as a seductress. Each time last night she’d caught him looking at her with fire in his blue eyes, she felt like stripping her clothes off and laying herself bare for his delectation. The thoughts were wanton and she should have felt disgrace and embarrassment but she was far from there. Shame was a devil’s road she didn’t want to tread. If there was to be shame in her future, she didn’t want to see it coming and she didn’t want Justin Trentham to be the cause.

  Coming to the delusional conclusion that what she did containe
d no disgrace whatsoever, she got to her feet and approached a small girl rolling a ball between her hands on the damp grass.

  “That’s a very pretty toy you have there.” Carmalina squatted down next to the beautiful child with long brown hair in plaits that draped over her shoulders. When she looked up into Carmalina’s face, there were twin dimples on the girl’s cherubic cheeks.

  “It’s a ball.” She smiled and held it up for Carmalina to look at.

  “Why don’t you play with the other children?”

  The girl’s face fell, her gaze dropping to her hands. “They don’t want to play with me.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “They don’t like me.” The words were choked with a little half sob.

  “I’ll play with you if you like,” Carmalina offered, her heart breaking for the lonely girl.

  The girl shook her head. “You can’t.”

  “Is there something wrong with me?” she asked as she looked down at her walking dress, held her hands out so the child could also look.

  “No, but…”

  “But?” Carmalina wondered where the sad look in the girl’s eyes stemmed from.

  “You are a lady, and ladies don’t play kick-the-ball.”

  “Who says I am a lady?” Carmalina shouldn’t, but she resented that even a five-year-old had her painted with the wrong brush.

  “You look like a lady.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving. What if I told you I am just another girl in a pretty dress who likes to play kick-the-ball?”

  The little girl’s eyes opened wide and she looked from Carmalina’s shiny new shoes peeking from beneath the hem of her new dove-grey morning gown, all the way to the pelisse wrapped about her shoulders to ward off the morning chill. It was the second outfit finished and delivered to the house late last night.

  “Do you really?”

  “I really do.” She stood and kicked off the painfully uncomfortable shoes, dropped her pelisse on the grass and then pulled the child up by her hand.

  “Your stockings will get dirty.”

  Carmalina stared down at the brand-new stockings and bent to take them off as well. Her toes would freeze but she would recover.

  “I am Carmalina,” she said in introduction while bent over her feet.

  The little girl grinned and dropped a curtsy to rival that of the most practiced genteel lady. “Claire Jean Beaufort.”

  Carmalina fought to smother a giggle. Holding her hand out, she held Claire’s and shook it dramatically. “Nice to meet you, Claire Jean Beaufort.”

  “Do you really know how to play this game?” Claire asked.

  “I do.” Carmalina nodded. “Why don’t you go stand over there and give it your best kick. I shall try to stop it from getting by me.”

  A small smile played on Carmalina’s lips as Claire’s face lit with enthusiasm as she ran backwards a few feet. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell the girl to be careful she didn’t fall but she thought better of it. Falling was a part of life.

  And then it hit her as surely as the flying ball. Falling was a part of life. It didn’t matter how one did it. It was inevitable. It was how one landed that determined one’s future.

  Armed with the sudden epiphany, her shoulders felt free of their unfamiliar burden and a brilliant smile curved her lips. She picked up the hem of her skirt and stopped the soft ball with her bare toes. Laughing with delight, Claire jumped up and down and called for Carmalina to kick it back.

  Pretty soon they were joined by three more children, all redheaded with large freckles denoting them as siblings. They were shy at first but as soon as Claire kicked the ball to one of her new friends they were simply children having fun. As they ought to be.

  For another hour, Carmalina delighted in the freedom of forgetting who she was, what she did and was about to do, where she came from. She dodged, fell, laughed, chuckled and even whooped all the while being carefully watched by hawklike nannies and governesses. Their disapproving glares said they were unhappy with her frivolity but because of her dress and because she was a stranger, no one came forward to tell her to stop. She wouldn’t have even if they did.

  “I really have to go now,” Carmalina puffed a little while later, one hand at her waist while she caught her breath.

  “Please don’t go,” Claire begged.

  “I shall be back this way tomorrow morning if the weather is fine. Perhaps I will see you all again.”

  Answering nods made her smile while she put her shoes back on, disregarding her stockings because her feet were so damp. She considered what Trentham would say if he found her playing about in the mud like an urchin. Strangely she didn’t care. She doubted he would either. If word were to get out that she ran around a park barefoot and full of laughter, his own ends would be furthered. If that didn’t start the scandal rolling, she didn’t know what would.

  * * *

  Her question was answered a short time later when Carmalina finally returned to her new home.

  She had hoped to enter the house unnoticed but that turned out to be a wishful fancy. She stifled a groan as Newberry held the front door wide for her.

  “Madam.” He nodded, stepped back, and took her damp pelisse from her cold fingers. “Was it raining out?”

  “No.” What else could she say? Carmalina saw the enquiry in his direct gaze but would not stand in the entrance chatting with the butler while she wore no stockings, her teeth held together tightly so they would not rattle in her head and her dress so damp and cold it hung from her like a sack.

  “Ah, there you are, bella.” The deep sound of Trentham’s voice rumbled through her, causing a shiver. Whether it was from the cold or the delicious way he purred the endearment, she couldn’t be sure.

  Looking past Newberry’s shoulder, she forced a tight smile to her lips and simply inclined her head. If she opened her mouth, her teeth would knock together so loud, the occupants of the house across the street would hear.

  “Could you please come in here? I need to discuss something with you.”

  Trepidation jumped along her every nerve. Surely whatever it was could wait until she warmed herself and put her clothes to right?

  “Please?” What more could she do when Justin begged her with that tone? The boyish smile that followed began to warm her with heat from a different kind of fire.

  Carmalina nodded, clenched her hands in her skirts and preceded him into the room. Straightaway she sought the chair closest to the burning embers in the grate and sent up a prayer he wouldn’t see the shivers she tried to suppress. She watched from beneath half-closed lids as he went to sit opposite her. He then seemed to change his mind and came to sit next to her on the settee.

  She had to squelch the urge to shuffle over so there remained distance between them but then she felt the warmth that emanated from his impressive frame. It was all she could do not to lean into him and let his body heat erase her chill.

  He cleared his throat and shifted as though uncomfortable being this close to her but then he spoke. “This is an indelicate conversation but we must have it.”

  When he didn’t go on, she lifted her head. What could be so indelicate it would have the most practiced womanizer in the country tongue-tied?

  “If we are to start the scandal, we should be seen together.”

  Still she didn’t respond. Just waited for him to continue. She would not make it easy for him.

  “Soon.”

  “How soon?” The words escaped her with a shudder.

  “Don’t be frightened. I’ll not feed you to the wolves just yet.” The tentative smile he summoned did little to ease her mind or lighten his words.

  Carmalina’s arms began to hurt with the effort to remain still. She had to get closer to the fire. If she didn’t get warm soon, she would catch a chill and that wouldn’t help either of them.

  Despite her lack of a response, Justin went on. “If we are to convince the world that we are lovers, you cannot blush the way you
do when I look at you.”

  And blush she did but it gave Carmalina the perfect excuse to get to her feet and lean against the mantel directly in front of the fire, her face hidden from his view.

  “I know we have an agreement but when we are seen together, my friends will expect a certain level of intimacy to be shown in public.”

  “I will meet your friends?” Dread washed over her in waves. Of course she would meet his friends. Who else would start the rumors and tales necessary to unleash his scandal?

  “Tonight.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Her cold and dread forgotten, she whirled to face him. “We cannot go out tonight.”

  “Why not?” He stood and moved closer, his blues eyes sparkling with familiar mischief.

  “I…I…I’m not ready yet.” She searched her mind for a more valid excuse but came up empty.

  “You don’t need to be. In fact you don’t need to say more than the odd ‘good evening’. Just laugh, smile, look ravishing and well loved.”

  “Well loved?” she squeaked.

  “Indeed.” Stepping closer, his eyes glazed as he leaned in, his breath a warm whisper against her cool cheek.

  “What are you doing?” She knew what he was doing; she just didn’t know how to stop him, or indeed if she wanted to.

  “I’m going to kiss you.” His mouth was so close to hers, a shiver escaped her tight control. He noticed.

  “Don’t be frightened, love. This won’t hurt a bit.

  Carmalina was helpless to object so she closed her eyes and waited for his lips to touch hers. Waited for the thrill his touch provoked.

  Nothing happened.

  Slowly her eyes drifted open. He was so close, he was all she could see yet he stood immobile as he stared at her. She wondered what he waited for. Did she do something wrong? Did she have dirt on her face?

  Suddenly self-conscious, she tried to step away only to find the sharp edge of the mantel against her shoulder blades and the heat of the fire at her back.

  “Why are you shivering?” he asked.

  “I am not.”

  “You are.” Justin stepped back, looked her up and down. “And there is grass in your hair.”