The Mistress' House

by Leigh Michaels

  Polly turned pink. “Only flirting, my lady, I’m sure. Nothing more than that. A footman and an upstairs maid…” Her tone was pensive.

  There was no future for them; Anne could almost hear her say it. And Polly was right—junior servants couldn’t afford to marry, even if their positions had allowed them to do so. Well, perhaps if Anne managed to set up her own household someday soon, she could do something about Polly and her suitor…

  “If you don’t mind helping me, Polly, I won’t wait for Maria.”

  Polly shook her head and smiled. “I’d be happy to help. Miss Maria’s gone to take care of Lady Braxton’s wardrobe, anyway.”

  “Ah. She grew tired of waiting for me?” Anne was relieved. Right now, she would just as soon not take the chance of Maria observing something that she might confide to her mistress. “I’m going to need a maid of my own, Polly. Maria doesn’t have time to wait on two ladies now that the Season is in full swing. If you’d like the post…”

  Polly’s eyes grew round. “Oh, my lady—I’d be that pleased!”

  “Then I’ll take it up with Lady Braxton and the housekeeper.” Anne was unfastening the gold buttons of her habit as she spoke, trying not to think of Hawthorne’s hands toying with each fastener, spreading the bodice, and touching her breasts. At the mere memory, her nipples tightened. She slid into the water and tried to wash away his caresses…

  No, that wasn’t fair. During the four years of her marriage, she had sometimes tried to scrub her body free of her husband’s touch, but if she was honest, Hawthorne’s had been anything but unpleasant.

  Why hadn’t he pushed to finish what they had started? Lack of desire wasn’t the reason—she was certain of that, for his voice had held an edge that she recognized. It was the sound of lust, lurking just beneath the civilized surface. What she didn’t quite understand was why he had restrained himself.

  Anticipation is an even better aphrodisiac than oysters, he had said. Well, perhaps for him it was. Hadn’t he said something similar to Charlotte Barnsley that evening when Anne had been eavesdropping? For herself, however, Anne wanted things settled. The sooner, the better.

  The warm water lapped over her skin, sending rivers of sensation through her, and she could almost hear his voice. Every whisper of the senses that you feel…

  From miles away, he had invaded her bath—just as he had said he would. She lay there for a moment, once more feeling his hands on her skin, as smooth and warm as the lavender-scented water… Anne sighed and reached for the towel Polly held out.

  ***

  Anne turned down the red gown Polly offered, choosing instead a royal blue one with a high neckline and trimmed in cream-colored lace. She had barely reached the morning room where Madeleine was holding court with a couple of young matrons when Digby appeared and announced Freddy Lassiter.

  Anne pasted a smile on her face and held out a hand to greet him.

  Freddy thrust at her a bunch of deep red roses that were already wilting from the heat of his hands. “Don’t know what’s the matter with these,” he said stiffly.

  “They need water, the poor things,” Anne said. “Digby, if you would bring a vase…”

  “Why not take them into the breakfast room where you can arrange them easily?” Madeleine asked. “I’m sure Freddy will keep you company.”

  With the door closed tightly, no doubt, Anne thought. “I would not wish to miss out on the conversation, Maddy.” She sorted through the flowers, wondering if any of them could be revived.

  Freddy hovered over her. “I’ve talked to your brother. He’s given his permission for me to pay my addresses to you. I tried to call on you yesterday to tell you, but you were not at home.” His voice was not quite accusing.

  “I had an errand to run. A dear friend down in Somerset has a new baby, and I was shopping for a christening gift.” Digby brought her a vase full of water and a pair of secateurs, and Anne began pruning stems.

  Freddy didn’t seem to be listening. “Now that Braxton’s said it’s all right for me to court you—”

  “Braxton may have said that,” Anne pointed out, “but I have not.”

  “Oh, that’s just missishness. I’m bound to be the favorite, Braxton says. I’m the youngest of your suitors and the most up to snuff.”

  Then perhaps Braxton will want to marry you himself, Anne thought tartly.

  Digby reappeared. “Lady Braxton, Lord Hawthorne has called and wishes to know if the ladies are at home.”

  The roses slipped from Anne’s suddenly nerveless hands and scattered across the carpet.

  One of the matrons let out a squeak. “You’re never going to let him in, Maddy!”

  The other chimed, “You could say you’re not receiving.”

  “Told him myself you’d be at home today,” Freddy offered. “Met him on my way over here.”

  Anne bit her lip to keep from giggling at the glare Madeleine gave him. Braxton might think Freddy the favorite, but Lady Braxton’s opinion of him had obviously suffered an abrupt change.

  Madeleine frowned. “Hawthorne is on visiting terms with Braxton. And since he knows I’m receiving this morning…” She glowered at Freddy again. “I can hardly refuse him admittance. Show him in, Digby.”

  A strained silence dropped over the morning room. Even Freddy seemed to belatedly recognize his gaffe, and he bent to pick up the roses Anne had dropped—perhaps to stay out of Madeleine’s sight.

  Hawthorne had changed from riding clothes into morning garb. Until she saw him again, Anne didn’t realize that she’d paid attention earlier to how elegantly his riding coat had fitted, how well cut and spotless his buckskins had been. Now he was simply gorgeous in a deep blue coat with a sapphire nestled in the folds of his cravat.

  He bowed low over Madeleine’s hand and begged pardon for intruding. “I hope I find you well, Lady Braxton. I come because I have been entrusted with a message for your sister.”

  His gaze came to rest on Anne, and she felt herself go warm all over. The nerve of the man! I’ll send you word of our next meeting, he had said. Anne hadn’t given much thought as to what form the message might take—she supposed she had expected a secret note tucked in a posy. Instead, here he was in person, looking unbearably handsome and aggravatingly at ease while making an assignation with his mistress under the very noses of three matrons who would be horrified if they knew what was really going on.

  “You are looking very well this morning, Lady Keighley,” he murmured. “London agrees with you?”

  “As well as can be expected,” Anne managed to say. The brush of his lips against her hand made her vibrate from head to toe.

  “What beautiful roses,” he said. “Just the color of ripe strawberries. It seems we have a friend in common,” he went on, before she could do more than think about kicking him. “You remember Mrs. Wilde?”

  I’ll never forget Mr. Wilde, she almost said. But I’d be amazed to hear he had a wife!

  His eyes—which turned out to be almost the same midnight blue as his coat—sparkled as if he’d read her thoughts. “I believe you met her some years ago when she was visiting her cousins near Keighley Park.”

  “I…” Anne said. Try as she might to read his expression, she could see nothing but polite inquiry in his eyes—as if he really didn’t care whether she followed his lead or not. “I believe I do recall her. A very small lady.”

  She noticed that Madeleine was watching her intently and improvised. “A dear soul. Rather round, I recall. Quite interested in…” She fumbled madly for something that would sound feasible and remembered the ornament in the jeweler’s shop. “Butterflies. She was very lively—for her age.”

  “And for her condition,” Hawthorne agreed solemnly. “She seemed pleased to discover that we are slightly acquainted and to hear that you are now residing in London. She begged me to ask you to visit her at her home at Number 5 Upper Seymour Street. Tomorrow, if possible—at three.”

  Madeleine said, “I don’t be
lieve I could accompany you then, Anne. Another day, perhaps.”

  “Your pardon, Lady Braxton,” Hawthorne said. “Mrs. Wilde lives very quietly. Her health often prevents her from rising from her bed at all, and even when she is able to be up, she is never able to receive more than a single visitor at a time.”

  As the double meanings mounted up, Anne wanted to roll her eyes.

  “May she count on you, Lady Keighley?” Now there was no doubt about the challenging glint in his eyes. Did he actually doubt that she’d go through with it?

  “Of course,” she said.

  Freddy offered, “I’ll take you.”

  Her gaze tangled for an instant with Hawthorne’s, and Anne thought they were both going to burst out laughing. Then he said, sounding only slightly strangled, “I will take my leave of you and convey the message. Thank you for allowing me to intrude, Lady Braxton.” He bowed beautifully and departed.

  “Well,” said one of the matrons. “I’ve never heard of a Mrs. Wilde.”

  “Why didn’t she just send a note if she wanted Anne to visit her?” said the other.

  “Her health,” Anne said. Her lips felt stiff. “It’s… not possible for her to use her hands.”

  “More likely she can’t write at all,” the matron sniffed. “If Hawthorne knows her, she must be a dodgy sort.”

  “But why is he willing to be her errand boy?” the first one asked.

  “She must be a neighbor,” the other put in. “Upper Seymour Street is right around the corner from Hawthorne’s town house on Portman Square.”

  Madeleine said nothing at all. She was staring at Anne, with a little wrinkle cutting between her very elegant eyebrows.

  Anne rescued the few roses that had survived Freddy’s grip and began arranging them in the vase. So she was going to see Hawthorne again tomorrow.

  Tomorrow. It seemed a long way away…

  Visiting Mrs. Wilde, indeed!

  ***

  Thorne managed to hold out until he was well away from Braxton’s house before he gave in to a bellow of laughter that startled his horses and made his groom look at him with concern.

  If not for Freddy’s ingenuous offer to deliver Anne to him tomorrow, he’d have enjoyed staying another half hour to torment her. But it was just as well he’d had to leave. It was much too soon to be dropping the sort of hints that would lead Lady Braxton to ask uncomfortable questions.

  He could wait until tomorrow… barely.

  In fact, however, he did not have to wait till the morrow, for he saw Lady Keighley again that evening.

  Thorne was standing at the edge of the ballroom floor as she finished the figures of a country dance, and he thought that she almost forgot her steps when she caught sight of him. As she left the floor, he smiled and bowed slightly and then turned back to Hastings, who was telling him in interminable detail about yet another horse. Thorne was far too experienced at stalking prey to rush the hunt—and he was not naive enough to think that this particular quarry was yet guaranteed to be his.

  So he half listened, and when Hastings finally wandered off to the card room, Thorne flicked a glance across the ballroom—not that he needed to; he could have told within three feet where Lady Keighley was—and then took a meandering path through the watchers to where she stood.

  With Lady Stone beside her. Well, that couldn’t be helped—though he’d rather not be carrying on his intrigues directly under Lucinda’s eagle eye, especially when she’d come so close to shopping him at her own ball just two nights since.

  Lady Keighley’s quick little inrush of breath told him that she was just as much on edge as he could have wished, and that sent heat surging through him. “I came to beg for this waltz, Lady Keighley, if you have it free.”

  “I don’t, my lord,” she said.

  He reached for the little dance card dangling from her wrist and looked down the list of names. Freddy Lassiter’s scrawl was there twice. The fellow was beginning to be a serious annoyance.

  “I see you managed to cadge an introduction, Thorne,” Lady Stone said. “Do take the man off and dance with him, Anne, or he’ll stand here and bore me with all his conquests. I’ll tell Freddy you had a better offer.”

  Thorne gave Lady Keighley the space of a breath to deal with her warring emotions. He could almost see her thinking about which would be the greater risk, taking the floor with him or dancing with Freddy Lassiter. After a moment, the first notes of the waltz sounded, and he took her hand and escorted her onto the floor.

  “Do you?” she asked abruptly. “Tell Lady Stone about all your conquests, I mean.”

  “Certainly not—no matter how much she begs for the details. And thank you for the compliment.” She frowned, obviously puzzled, and he went on, “I find it quite flattering that you assume Lady Stone would not be bored to hear of my exploits.”

  “Oh. That wasn’t intended as a compliment.”

  “I was afraid not. But I shall take it that way nevertheless.” He swept her around the room, delighting in the ever-so-slight tremor of her fingers as they lay in his and the way that her body responded to the smallest pressure of his hand against the small of her back. “Will you come for a drive with me tomorrow?”

  She looked up at him in utter astonishment. “What of Mrs…” She swallowed the name.

  “Mrs. Wilde? I could deliver you to her door.”

  “You just don’t want me to take Freddy up on his offer. Don’t fret… I will not do so. But I hardly need your escort.”

  “As you wish. Though a turn in the park beforehand would certainly make tongues wag nicely.”

  She looked at him in consternation—as if she’d forgotten the entire point of their agreement for a few moments, but now it had come crashing in on her again. “And this waltz won’t?”

  “It’s a step,” he admitted.

  “You could sweep me off to a little alcove. Don’t even try to tell me you don’t know where to find one.”

  “Of course I do. But there’s no challenge there. No creative spark to the idea. And I’ll do nothing to put tomorrow in jeopardy.”

  Her eyes had gone wide and dark.

  How, he wondered, could she not recognize the passion in herself when he could see it so clearly? How was it possible for her to talk glibly and sensibly about taking lovers when the barest touch banished all rational thought from her head?

  The fact was that he would be doing Lady Keighley a great favor by teaching her the game of love—before she fell in with some jackanapes who would use her passion to manipulate her.

  The thought of her being used was an unpleasant one. To banish it, he pulled her just a little closer and swept her once more around the floor.

  “Is there really a Mrs. Wilde?” she asked.

  “You’ll find that out tomorrow,” he murmured as the music ended. Along with a great many other things, my dear…

  When he returned her to Lady Stone, Freddy Lassiter was standing there, fists clenched. “I should call you out, Hawthorne.”

  “By all means,” Thorne said sweetly, “if you wish to make a cake of yourself. You were not here when the music started… I was. The alternative was for Lady Keighley to miss out on the waltz.” He let his gaze rest on her face. “Something she would have very much regretted.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Freddy,” Lady Stone said sharply. “The man pilfered a dance, that’s all. I’m sure someday you can return the favor. Or do you truly wish to commit suicide by meeting Hawthorne with pistols at dawn?”

  Freddy backed down.

  “Idiot,” Lady Stone said. “Freddy, take Lady Keighley off and get her a cool drink before she wilts.”

  Thorne watched as the pair moved away. He was not surprised—but he was pleased—when Lady Keighley looked back over her shoulder and colored deliciously when she caught his eye.

  Lady Stone rapped his knuckles with her fan. “Come, Thorne. Stop gawking at the girl and promenade with me—to atone for your many sins. What are you up to th
is time, pray tell?”

  “Atoning,” he said.

  She sniffed. “I’ll bet.”

  ***

  The house at Number 5 Upper Seymour Street was small and neat and very quiet. The entrance was tucked farther back from the street than the other houses along the way, and every window was discreetly curtained. The front was well kept, with the step scrubbed clean and the door freshly painted in a rich, shiny black.

  The absence of a knocker made Anne pause for an instant. It was the universal signal that the residents were not at home or that callers were not welcome.

  But, of course, that was no surprise, Anne thought. Any woman Thorne had in keeping would not be encouraged to entertain anyone other than him—and he, no doubt, carried a key.

  The footman who had helped her out of Madeleine’s carriage looked around for a knocker and then gave her a quizzical glance. Now what? Anne wondered. She had tried to discourage him from walking her to the door, but he had insisted. Or rather, she suspected, Madeleine had ordered him to insist.

  Before she could gather her thoughts, the door swung open and she found herself facing an elderly and very correct butler.

  “I’m… I was asked to call on Mrs. Wilde,” she said.

  “Come in, my lady.” He looked down his nose at the footman. “The carriage need not wait. Mrs. Wilde will arrange to convey her guest home.”

  The footman sputtered a bit, but the butler stepped back into the hallway. Anne hesitated for the merest instant. Then she crossed the threshold, and the door closed behind her.

  The butler did not pause. “This way, my lady.” He started up the stairs.

  Anne’s breath caught in her throat. But she was committed now. There was no backing out.

  At the top of the second flight, he tapped on a door, opened it, and closed it behind her without a word.

  She had expected a bedroom. Instead, she found herself in a small jewel of a sitting room that looked as if it had never been used. She noted cream silk walls, heavy velvet drapes, delicate furniture and—standing near the fireplace—a very tall man who turned with a smile to greet her.