More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress

by Mary Balogh

  “I would be obliged if you would watch your language,” she said. “And my movements are none of your business. Or my destination in London. Excuse me. I have to fetch Hannah and have our bags put back on the coach before it leaves without us.”

  He ignored her. He closed the parlor door and stood against it, his long, booted legs crossed at the ankles, his arms folded across his chest. He was looking less grim now.

  “Was it that stupid joke I made?” he asked her. “About your winning our wager? It was a joke.”

  “It was not a joke,” she said, taking up her stand on the far side of the table. “You said you were going to give me the deed to Pinewood today. Don’t tell me you were going to do it out of the goodness of your heart. Or out of a pang of conscience.”

  “But I was,” he said.

  “Was I that good?” She glared scornfully at him.

  “I decided it yesterday,” he said, “long before I knew whether you were good or not.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Liar!”

  He stared at her for such a long time that her fury evaporated and a cold chill crept up her spine in its place.

  “If you were a man,” he said at last, “I would call you out for that.”

  “If I were a man,” she retorted, “I would accept.”

  He reached into a pocket of his coat and drew out some folded papers. He held them out to her. “Yours,” he said. “Come and take them. We’ll eat, and then I’ll reserve a room here for you and your maid tonight and hire a private chaise to take you both home tomorrow.”

  “No.” She stayed where she was. “I don’t want it.”

  “Pinewood?”

  “I don’t want it.”

  He stared at her for a few moments before striding toward the table and slapping the papers down on it.

  “Goddammit!” he said. “If that doesn’t beat all. What the devil do you want?”

  “Watch your language!” she said again. What she did want was to rush around the table, cast herself into his arms, and sob out all her misery. But since that was not an option, she regarded him coldly. “I want you to go away and leave me alone. I want you to take those papers with you. And if it is not too late, I want to get on the stagecoach.”

  “Viola,” he said, his voice so gentle suddenly that he almost broke her reserve, “take Pinewood. It is yours. It was never mine. Not really. I daresay the old earl meant it to be yours but just forgot to change his will.”

  “He did not forget,” she said stubbornly. “He would not have done so. He did it. It was the wrong will that the Duke of Tresham read.”

  “Well, then.” He shrugged and she knew she had not convinced him. “All the more reason for you to take the papers and go back home. I’ll continue on my way to London and make the transfer right and tight. Let me tell the landlord we are ready for dinner.”

  “No!” He had already taken a couple of steps toward the door. He turned to look at her in some exasperation. “No,” she said again. “It would be a gift from you. Or the prize for a wager won. I will not accept it either way. Things would never be the same. It was a gift from him.”

  “Very well, then.” He was definitely annoyed now. “We will just say that I am setting matters right.”

  “No.”

  He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled and unconsciously making himself look more gorgeous than ever.

  “What do you want, then?” he asked her.

  “I have told you.”

  “What are you going to do in London?”

  She smiled at him even though every muscle in her face felt stiff. “That is not any of your business,” she told him.

  His eyes narrowed and he looked menacing again. “If you are planning to go back to whoring,” he said, “it dashed well is my business. You were happy enough at Pinewood until I came along. I am not going to have you on my conscience every time I see you about town with the Lord Gnasses of this world. You had better marry me.”

  Her insides somersaulted, and for a moment she stared at him in utter astonishment. He looked hardly less surprised himself. She forced herself to smile again.

  “I think I had better not marry you,” she said. “The Duke of Tresham would devour you for breakfast.”

  “I don’t care a tuppenny toss what Tresham says,” he said. “Or anyone else. I’ll marry whomever I want to marry.”

  “Unless she says no.” She felt engulfed in a huge wave of sadness as she continued to smile. “And she does say no. You think you know the worst about me, Lord Ferdinand, but you do not know all. I am a bastard, you see. When my mother married my stepfather, it was her first marriage. Thornhill was her maiden name. You do not want to be marrying a bastard and a whore.”

  “Don’t do that.” He frowned. “Don’t smile like that and call yourself names like that.”

  “But they are true names,” she said. “Come, admit that you are relieved by my refusal. You spoke entirely without forethought. You would be horrified if I said yes.”

  “I would not,” he said, but he spoke without conviction.

  Viola smiled again.

  “You are not going back to whoring,” he told her.

  “How vulgar!” she said. “I was never a whore. I was a courtesan. There is a world of difference.”

  “Don’t do that,” he said again. “Do you have any money?”

  She stiffened. “That is none—”

  “And don’t tell me it is none of my damned business,” he said. “You don’t, do you?”

  “I have enough,” she told him.

  “Enough for what?” he asked. “Your fare and your maid’s to London? A few meals along the way?”

  That was about it.

  “If you won’t go home to Pinewood and if you won’t marry me,” he said, “there is only one thing left for you.”

  Yes, she knew that. But she felt as if the weight of the universe had settled on her shoulders again. Had she really been hoping that he would be more persuasive over one of the other options?

  “You are going to have to be my mistress,” he said.

  16

  HEY WERE DRIVING INTO LONDON IN FERDINAND’S carriage, everyone else in their entourage having been banished to horse or curricle. They were sitting side by side, as far apart as space allowed, gazing out of opposite windows. They had not spoken to each other for more than an hour. It was early evening.

  Ferdinand did not feel as he imagined a man ought to feel with a new mistress. Not that she had yet agreed to accept the position. But she had adamantly refused to go back to Pinewood. She had insisted upon paying for her own room at the inn and had tried to purchase tickets for herself and her maid on today’s London stage. That was after breakfast. He had threatened to revive the story about her being a runaway wife if she tried it. He would take her over his knee in some very public place and wallop her a good one, and there would not be a man or woman at the inn who would not applaud him.

  She had retaliated with an icy stare and an assurance that if he laid so much as a fingernail on her she would inform everyone within earshot exactly why she had run away from her husband. He would not care to discover how very inventive she could be, she warned him, but he was welcome to find out, if he so desired. However, she would accept a ride in his carriage to London, since he had caused her to miss yesterday’s stagecoach, for which she had paid.

  “I suppose,” she said now, breaking the long silence between them, “you have not thought this thing through, have you? I suppose you do not know where you would take me. We cannot go to a hotel. It would not be respectable. You cannot take me to your rooms. Your neighbors would be scandalized. I have no rooms of my own—I gave them up two years ago.”

  “There you are wrong,” he told her. “Of course I know where I am taking you. You are going to be my mistress, and I intend to house you in style. But I have just the house in mind for tonight and the next few days.”

  “I suppose,” she said, “it is
where you always house your mistresses.”

  “Well, it is not,” he said. “I am not in the habit of mounting mistresses. I prefer to … Well, never mind.” She had turned to look at him, her expression faintly amused. She was such an expert at that look, and it never failed to irritate him and make him feel like a gauche schoolboy. “The house is Tresham’s.”

  “Your brother’s?” She raised her eyebrows. “It is where he houses his mistresses? Are you sure there is no one in residence?”

  “It is where he did house them,” he said, “before his marriage. I don’t know why he has never sold the house, but to my knowledge he still has it.”

  “How long has the duke been married?” she asked.

  “Four years,” he said.

  “Are you quite sure, then, that the house is not occupied?” she asked.

  It had damned well better not be. If it was, he would rearrange Tresham’s nose for him so that it projected inward instead of outward. Not that one could really challenge one’s brother for being unfaithful to one’s sister-in-law. But Ferdinand had not realized until that moment how much he was depending upon his brother to restore some of his faith in love and marriage. Tresham’s had almost certainly been a love match. But could it stand the test of time? Tresham had always changed mistresses dizzyingly often.

  “You really are not sure, are you?” Viola Thornhill asked him. “You had better let me down at a clean, cheap hotel, Lord Ferdinand. You can go back to Pinewood or back to your usual life here in London and forget all about me. You are not responsible for me.”

  “I am,” he said. “I played cards with Bamber and turned your life upside down.” Not to mention his own.

  “If it had not been you,” she said, “it would have been someone else. You are not responsible for me. Set me down and I will get on with my life. I will not be destitute. I have work awaiting me.”

  “As a whore?” He frowned fiercely at her. “You could do better than that. There are all sorts of other things you could do.”

  “But whoring is so lucrative,” she said, her voice pure velvet amusement. He hated it when she did that.

  “You are going to be my mistress,” he said stubbornly. “It was settled yesterday. It has been settled again today. I don’t want to hear any more arguments.”

  “It was settled and is being settled unilaterally,” she said. “Do I have no say in the matter? Because I am a woman, perhaps? A nonentity? A thing? A toy? You do not want a mistress, Lord Ferdinand. And I have never been one. I have always belonged to myself.”

  “There is no point in telling me yet again that you are no man’s mistress,” he said. “You are now. And you are going to be for some time to come. You are my mistress. Look at me.”

  She looked at his chin and smiled as she settled her shoulders across the corner of the carriage.

  “Into my eyes. Look into my eyes.”

  “Whyever should I?” She laughed softly.

  “Because you are not the sort to enjoy being called a coward,” he said. “Dash it all, look into my eyes.”

  She did.

  “Now tell me,” he said. “Would you prefer to go whoring with a different man each night than to be my mistress?”

  “It would be the same thing,” she said.

  “It would not.” He did not know why he was arguing with her. She kept insisting she was not his responsibility. Why not take her at her word? “Being a man’s mistress is respectable employment. And it would not be uncongenial to you to be my mistress, would it? You did not mind two nights ago. I believe you even enjoyed it.”

  “I am very skilled at feigning enjoyment, Lord Ferdinand,” she said.

  He turned his head away. Yes, of course she was. He had doubtless been mortifyingly fumbling and awkward and ignorant. What did he know about pleasing any woman, not to mention a skilled, experienced courtesan? And why was he trying to pressure such a woman into accepting regular employment from him? How would he hold her interest—or incite it in the first place? Not that a man was required to do that with his mistress, of course. She was the one being paid. It was her job to hold his interest. Except that he did not believe he would be able to do those intimate things with a woman who did them with him only because she was being paid.

  She touched his arm then. “But I did not have to feign it two nights ago,” she said.

  Well, there. He felt absurdly pleased, though she might well have said so just out of kindness.

  “You will stay at that house of Tresham’s until I can find a place of my own for you,” he said.

  “Very well,” she said quietly. “Take me there. But I will stay only as long as we both wish to continue the liaison. We must both be free to end it at a moment’s notice.”

  It chilled him to think of ending the affair even before it had begun, but he had no objection. Of course she must be free to leave when she tired of him. He must be free to leave when he tired of her. It would happen at some time, he supposed. He could not imagine ever tiring of Viola Thornhill, but he was naïve and inexperienced.

  “We have a deal, then,” he said, and he reached out and took her hand in a firm clasp. She did not return the pressure of his fingers, but neither did she pull away. “You will be my mistress and under my protection. All we have left to discuss is your salary.”

  He could not bear the thought of paying her to bed with him. But dammit, he had offered her Pinewood and she had refused. He had offered her marriage and she had refused. What other choice had she left him?

  “Not now,” she said, turning her head away to look out through her window. “We can talk about that tomorrow.”

  There should be some definitive moment, he thought, to mark the beginning of their liaison. He should draw her into his arms and kiss her soundly. But the carriage was well into London already. Indeed, they would be stopping outside Dudley House within a minute or two. He would wait until he had her inside Tresham’s house—the other house, that is. He would kiss her soundly then. No, he would take her to bed and consummate their new relationship—employer and employee, man and mistress.

  Lord, but there was something strangely depressing about the thought. He was not at all sure …

  The carriage turned onto Grosvenor Square and rolled to a halt outside Dudley House.

  “Stay here,” he said, releasing her hand as his coachman opened the door and set down the steps.

  “FERDINAND!” THE DUCHESS OF Tresham came hurrying toward him as soon as he strode into the drawing room in the wake of the butler’s announcement. “What a delightful surprise!” She set both her hands in his and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Jane.” He squeezed her hands and looked her over. “As lovely as ever. Have you fully recovered your health after your confinement?”

  She laughed. She was a golden beauty, whose figure looked just as good to Ferdinand now as it had four years ago, when he first met her.

  “Jocelyn warned me before he married me that Dudley babies give their mothers a hard time even before they are born,” she said. “He said it to shock me at the time, but he was perfectly right. I have, however, survived the ordeal twice.”

  His brother was in the room too, Ferdinand saw then. He was holding a tiny baby against one shoulder and patting its back.

  “I never thought I would live to see the day, Tresh,” Ferdinand said with a grin, strolling closer to admire his newest nephew, whose eyes were open but fixed, as if he were very close to sleep.

  “Yes, well, Dudley babies are not finished with giving their parents a rough time once they are out of the womb, Ferdinand, as we should well remember,” his brother said. “Don’t waggle your fingers at him like that, if you please. I do believe he is about to nod off after deafening me with his cries for all of an hour past. Have the joys of country living palled already? I thought you had found your vocation at last. I came home from Somersetshire and told Jane so.”

  “What Jocelyn means,” Jane said, “is that we are delighted to see you
, Ferdinand. You must join us for dinner, which will be ready as soon as Christopher is returned to the nursery. Nicholas is already asleep. You must come and see him tomorrow.”

  “I am not here to stay,” Ferdinand said. “I wondered if I might have a word with you, Tresh.”

  “Alone?” his brother asked. “With something that is not for the duchess’s ears? Dear me. Did you rid yourself of that woman, by the way? I hope she did not persuade you into paying her a large bribe.”

  “Miss Thornhill is no longer at Pinewood,” Ferdinand said stiffly.

  “Then I am proud of you,” his brother said. “Particularly if you did not bribe her. I’ll take Christopher up to his bed, Jane. Ferdinand may accompany me and divulge his secret.”

  “I’ll say good night, Jane,” Ferdinand said, bowing to her, “and call on you tomorrow at a more proper hour, if I may.”

  “You may call here at any hour you please, Ferdinand,” she said, smiling affectionately at him. “I want to hear all about Pinewood Manor.”

  “Well, speak,” Tresham said when they were on the stairs. “What scrape are you in now? And do not waste your breath assuring me that there is no scrape. Your face has always borne a distinct resemblance to an open book.”

  “I would like a loan of your house,” Ferdinand said abruptly. “Your other house, that is. If you still own it, but I believe you do. And if there is no current occupant.”

  “There are two,” his brother said. “Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs, butler and housekeeper. No mistress, Ferdinand, if that is what you meant, and I daresay it was. I have a wife. Now, let me guess and let me hope I am well wide of the mark. You do have a mistress. Lilian Talbot, by any chance?”

  “Miss Thornhill,” Ferdinand said. They turned in the direction of the nursery, but Tresham made no move to go inside. “She needs somewhere to live. She won’t take Pinewood and I won’t be responsible for her returning to whoring.”

  “She won’t take Pinewood.” Tresham did not make the remark into a question. “I suppose you developed a chronic case of bleeding heart, Ferdinand, and offered it to her free of charge. And she had too much pride to accept. Good for her.”