An Experienced Mistress

by Bryn Donovan

  He gave her that look she was learning she couldn’t resist, the smile that was more in his eyes than the curve of his mouth. “Maybe I think it’s fun.”

  Fun. She might as well enjoy her birthday while she could. She’d worry about tomorrow when it came.

  “Well, perhaps I should go to Brace’s to get some more fabric,” she said.

  “Fabric? You make the dresses yourself?”

  “Of course.”

  He looked mystified. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “From my mother, where else?”

  “I’ll be damned. Tell you what, though. This time, let us just have a dressmaker make some for you.”

  “I don’t like the sorts of dresses they make.”

  “They can make them just as you want them.” He pursed his lips. “Why is it that you always wear white, anyway?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—I don’t always. My mother wore it often. It was quite the thing in her day.” She smiled a little. “And white muslin is so inexpensive.”

  “Will you let someone else make one for you? It will give you more time for your painting.”

  An appealing idea, but she still wasn’t convinced. “If we go in and ask a dressmaker to make something like this, they’ll laugh at me.”

  “I guarantee you they shall not.”

  And they didn’t. In the company of Will Creighton, it seemed, Genevieve could have demanded a dress made out of wolf pelts and they wouldn’t have behaved as though anything were out of the ordinary.

  “It is such a practical style,” the woman told her, once she explained that she wanted something simple and flowing. “And very natural.”

  “To be sure, you would look lovely in anything,” the dressmaker’s assistant said, once they whisked her into a back room to take measurements. “That hair...and such a perfectly proportioned figure.” They flattered her as if she were some sort of countess instead of the ragtag woman she felt like when she walked in the door.

  “Now, in addition to the plain white dress, would you like something more luxurious? We have some stunning new damasks.”

  “I’m only getting one dress, thank you,” Genevieve told them.

  “Oh, no,” the dressmaker corrected her. “The gentlemen said you are to have three of them.”

  Good heavens. She knew there was no point in arguing, but she grew a bit dizzy at the unexpected indulgence. Shyly, she said, “I suppose I shall take a look at the damasks.”

  The two ladies had Genevieve occupied in the back room for quite some time. When she came out to the front again, Will wasn’t there.

  Apprehension flickered through her. Maybe he had an appointment he’d forgotten about? If he was gone, it put her in a very awkward position. Wasn’t one supposed to pay in advance? She honestly did not know. She had very little money with her, not nearly enough for three dresses.

  “The gentleman told me to tell you he would be back soon,” the girl who minded the front of the shop said.

  “Oh.” Genevieve filled with relief. Perhaps he’d gone to fetch a newspaper. In the next moment, he came in the door again, but with a small package rather than a copy of the Times.

  “Ah, you’re done. You were not waiting long, were you?”

  “No, not at all.”

  He paid the girl at the counter, who told them both that the dresses would be ready to try on in a couple of weeks. Will bid them good afternoon, and Genevieve walked out with him into the street.

  “What did you get?” she asked, just to have something to say, because she felt awkward having him pay for her. She thought that perhaps the package contained pipe tobacco, or maybe cuff-links.

  “Open it and see.” He handed it to her with both hands.

  “Another present?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Aren’t you’re being a little wasteful?”

  “Certainly not, since it’s for you. Open it.”

  Genevieve unwrapped the brown paper to reveal a polished wooden box. She gave him a quizzical look, then lifted the hinged lid.

  In the velvet interior, a gold necklace sparkled. It was formed in delicate scallops that were almost like lace, with a single green stone at the center.

  “It is lovely,” she said slowly. “The stone is paste, is it not? It looks very real, though.”

  He frowned. “It is real. An emerald. To match your eyes.”

  She stared down at it again. “I can’t take this.”

  “You certainly can.”

  “You should not have gotten it.” She snapped the box shut. “You’re mad.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Take it back!”

  “Well,” he said mildly. “This is not quite the response I’d hoped for.” He tilted his head. “Although, if you do not care for it, that’s another matter. You can pick out something else, if you like.”

  “That’s not the point. You cannot go around buying me everything. You will run yourself into the poorhouse.”

  Will smiled and took her by the arm. “Gen. It is very kind of you to worry, but you needn’t. The necklace is not even that lavish of a piece. And the truth is it’s not that much for me.”

  “I cannot believe that.” She truly couldn’t. No one had that much money, did they?

  “It’s true. My father’s money aside, I have an inheritance in my own name from an uncle who never married. And obviously, I didn’t spend too much while I was away at war.”

  “Well. I’m still not sure.”

  Will laughed. “I never thought I would have to work so hard to persuade a woman to let me buy her jewelry. This is not how it’s supposed to work at all.”

  He opened the box again and drew out the necklace. “Wear it, won’t you? I have already bought it now. It will be humiliating if I have to return it.”

  She took it from him and put it on, fastening the clasp in back. Then she went up to a nearby store window to look at her reflection.

  “Oh, Will.” Her breath caught. She turned to him. “The piece is beautiful.”

  “It is on you.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “I have no doubt you’ll find a way.”

  “Scoundrel.”

  He grinned. “Let’s go to tea.”

  She felt like Cinderella. Only in this case, the prince granted all the wishes.

  They entered an elegant tea-room. Even in such a well-bred crowd, Will attracted several ladies’ notice. They clearly stared at him, and then at her, wondering what in the world the two of them were doing together. Well, let them wonder. Genevieve enjoyed the novel experience.

  Once they were seated, Will ordered tea and jam-cakes. As far as Genevieve could tell, he didn’t seem to notice anyone in the place but her. Not, at least, until a short, golden-haired girl came up to their table.

  “Hello, Mr. Creighton,” she said, beaming at Will.

  Genevieve bristled. The girl couldn’t be any older than eighteen.

  “Miss Tudbury.” Will rose to his feet. Genevieve, rather grudgingly, did the same. “May I introduce you to Miss Bell.”

  “How do you do,” Genevieve said.

  “Pleased to meet you!” the girl gushed,

  “Miss Bell is a painter,” Will explained. “I am considering buying some of her work.”

  “How delightful! Have you only just met, then?”

  “Yes,” Genevieve said.

  “We have known each other a while,” Will replied at the same time. Both women stared at him. “A very little while, is what I meant to say.”

  Miss Tudbury looked to Genevieve and back to Will with apparent satisfaction. “I think it’s marvelous when people do what they love.”

  “Yes,” Genevieve said. “I mean, thank you.”

  She relaxed a bit. Whatever the girl’s story was, she didn’t seem to have her cap set on Will.

  “Are you here with your mother, Daisy?” Will asked the girl.

  “Oh, no. With her friend Mrs. Hightower. She’s—” Da
isy began to point her out. “Oh. She’s coming over,” she said with what sounded like dejection.

  The lady was at the side of their table in a trice. A graying brunette, everything about her looked narrow: her figure, her nose, her lips. “Daisy, pray introduce me to your friends,” she ordered.

  “Mrs. Hightower, this is Mr. Creighton, and his friend, Miss...”

  “Miss Bell,” Genevieve supplied.

  “Miss Bell is an artist,” Daisy added.

  “Indeed? How charming,” Miss Hightower said, clearly not charmed. “My own daughter used to paint quite well, you know.”

  “Did she?” Genevieve asked.

  “Yes. Very well. But of course at a certain age, we had to discourage her.”

  Genevieve kept her tone as polite as she could when she asked, “Oh? And why did you have to do that?”

  “It was time for her to begin cultivating herself for her true profession...that of being a wife and mother.”

  “I see.”

  “It is the only true profession for any woman, do you not agree?”

  Indignation swept through Genevieve. She stared the lady right in the eye when she said, “No. I do not agree at all.”

  “We ought to be getting back to our tea!” Daisy declared in a loud, chipper voice.

  “Indeed we ought,” her companion said.

  “I just wanted to say hello,” Daisy said. She turned to Genevieve again. “I am ever so glad to meet you.” This seemed calculated to defy the unfriendly Miss Hightower. Before Genevieve could respond, the girl strode off.

  Will grimaced. “Sorry about that,” he said as they both sat down again.

  “Who was that woman? Do you know her?”

  “The older woman? No, never met her before, happy to say. Daisy’s all right, though. A family friend.”

  “I see. So you know her well.” She could not avoid a pang of jealousy, thinking of how the girl had known him for years.

  “I don’t know her all that well. Although our parents would like us to marry, it seems.”

  Genevieve’s muscles clenched as though she’d been kicked in the stomach.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Well, I’m not interested. Not now, at any rate. I’m enjoying the life of a bachelor too much.” He gave her an amused look, but she couldn’t return it.

  “Does she know that?”

  “Know what?”

  “That you are not interested in marrying?” Her throat tightened a little. “Yet?”

  “I have never given her the slightest reason to think we might marry.”

  “Oh?” Genevieve found she couldn’t let go of this subject. “Because she might be thinking that she’s—you know—special to you, when in fact she’s nothing of the sort.”

  “I do not think you need to worry about Miss Tudbury. She’s quite the sensation of the Season.”

  “I see.” Genevieve picked up her teacup, her nerves as brittle as its eggshell-thin china. “How nice for her.”

  “Gen.” Will lowered his voice. “If it is all the same, I have no interest in discussing Miss Tudbury.”

  “Aren’t you worried she will tell people about me? What will people think?”

  “The hell with what people think.”

  Genevieve reached under the table, her movements hidden by the tablecloth from public view, so she could cover his hand with hers.

  He flinched at the unexpected touch. She stroked the top of the hand, including the shortened fingers. Then she worried about what she did, and her hand froze.

  “Does that hurt?” she whispered. “When I touch that part of your hand?”

  “No. It is completely healed.”

  “Good.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “When I have touched it before, I’ve been concerned.”

  “You are always welcome to touch me wherever you want,” he said in a low tone. Then he frowned slightly. “It never bothers you, does it?”

  “What, your hand? No! I mean, of course it bothers me that you were hurt. It’s lucky it was only your left hand.” Then she gave a short, derisive laugh at herself. “But that’s a foolish thing to say. It would be luckier if you had not been hurt at all.”

  He chuckled. “I suppose so. But still. I’m extremely fortunate.” Will explained to her how he’d given one of his gloves to Bennet.

  “Oh, Lord,” she gasped. “That was very noble of you.”

  He shook his head. “Hardly. It was my fault he was there at all.”

  “How could it have been?”

  “Why, I persuaded him to join. I thought it was a capital idea,” he said with a keen edge of sarcasm. “You remember how it was, after the Russians sank the Turkish fleet.”

  Genevieve nodded. “Everyone said the Czar had to be stopped. Even my father felt that.”

  “No one felt it more than me. I was determined to do something heroic.” His square jaw clenched tight.

  “And you convinced Bennet to do the same?”

  “I honestly believed that if he missed out, he would regret it later. Gave him the bloody St. Crispin’s Day speech.”

  “And then you were both in the same regiment,” Genevieve said.

  “I was his lieutenant. Of course, it was a purchased post.”

  “Ah. I had no idea you were in command.”

  “I would not say exactly ‘in command.’ It was only a small throng of incompetent bastards in command.” Then he winced. “Sorry.”

  “Why should you apologize?” She took a sip of the sweetened tea and waited patiently for whatever he might want to say next.

  “Almost all of the men were older than me. Most of them experienced. Ben was the only one younger. He was only twenty. Twenty-one, when he died.”

  “Oh, God. He was killed in combat?”

  “No. Cholera.”

  “That’s so awful,” Genevieve said, heart sinking.

  “They almost all died,” he told her, as if confessing a shameful sin. She felt his hand grip hers tighter under the table. “I couldn’t help them. I tried...People talk about me being a hero, but I only fought two battles. Mostly what I did was watch men die of disease. Good men. And it took so long for them to die.” He looked raw and pained. She realized that they both leaned closer to one another over the little table.

  “There was nothing I could do,” he said. “No, I think that’s wrong. A few of them...” He blinked hard, as if that could rid his mind’s eye of whatever images he remembered. “I should have shot them, rather than let them suffer as much as they did. If I’d had more courage, I would have. That’s what I think now.”

  Genevieve ached for him. She knew that he’d been through a terrible ordeal, but until now she hadn’t realized just how deeply the experience affected him.

  Completely healed, he’d said of the hand, and perhaps that was true. But it certainly wasn’t true of his spirit. Not at all.

  She wished they weren’t sitting in a crowded tea shop. The noise and bustle did give their conversation a measure of privacy. No one could have overheard them over the din. But she’d have liked to take him into her arms, to smother some of the horror and hurt, if such a thing were even possible. She settled for covering his hand with her other hand as well, so that it was enclosed between both of hers.

  After a few moments, he sighed, his tense shoulders relaxing. “I am sorry. We’re supposed to be celebrating.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up in a rueful smile, though he still looked contrite. “It is your own fault, you know. For being so easy to talk to. But enough of that. It’s not helping to make your birthday happy.”

  “Oh, Will,” she said softly. “You’ve already done so much to make me happy.”

  His deep brown eyes held her in a soulful gaze. “Really? You are not just saying that.”

  She almost laughed at the absurdity of his question. Did he truly have no idea how he affected her? “Of course, really.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” he said, u
nguarded, open. He bowed his head for a moment, and she felt his other hand, large and strong, take hers. “We were talking about being lucky...I’m lucky to have you.”

  Genevieve’s hands trembled. “I imagine most people would say it is the other way around.”

  “Then most people would be wrong.” He squeezed her hands before releasing them.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Babbage,” Will called out from the parlor. In a few moments, the butler appeared.

  “Sir?”

  “I’ll be ready to leave at five for Hertfordshire. Will you tell the coachman, please?”

  The butler’s features rearranged themselves in a solicitous frown. “Ah, I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Creighton, I meant to tell you. Parrish isn’t feeling well.”

  “Again?” Will paused in the middle of putting on his topcoat.

  “Yes, I’m afraid his chills and fever are back.”

  “Well, good God, it isn’t serious, is it? Should I send for a doctor?”

  “Oh, no, sir, nothing like that. He just needs to rest. But I’m happy to drive you again.”

  “You don’t want to do that. I expect it’ll be a very long evening. I’ll hire a driver.”

  “Hire a driver, when I’m available? I should think not, sir. I don’t mind however late it is.”

  “Babbage—”

  “I began at your father’s house as a coachman, sir,” the servant huffed. “I may be getting on in years, but I assure you I am still a fine driver.”

  “I have know that you are,” Will said. He hadn’t meant to offend the man. “Very well, Babbage, we shall leave at five.”

  “Excellent, sir.

  ****

  With the longer days and the warmer weather, the front walk to Genevieve’s door was now flanked with spires of larkspur and foxglove.

  Flory greeted Will at the door. “Miss Genny’s still out in the garden.”

  “I didn’t see her.”

  “She’s around back, sir. You can go through the side gate to see her, if you like.”

  Rose vines climbed up the arch over the gate. He supposed it wouldn’t be long before they were in full bloom. Genevieve stood, her back to him, in the middle of the garden, which was surrounded by fruit trees and a crumbling stone wall.