No Man's Mistress

by Mary Balogh

  “Is it?” she asked, gazing about at the wide view over fields and river and the house below, centered perfectly between the trees of the avenue. “If there were no illusions, there would be no disillusionment. But then one would have no fond memories either, with which to fortify oneself against the pain of reality.”

  Her hand was soft and warm in his. A light breeze fluttered the poke of her bonnet and the ribbons that dangled from the bow beneath her ear. He wanted desperately to kiss her and wondered if he was in love with her. Or was it the tenderness of pity that he felt? Or merely lust? But he did not feel particularly lustful at the moment.

  She turned her head to look at him. “I have wanted to hate and despise you,” she said. “I wanted you to be all the nasty and dissolute things I thought you must be.”

  “But I am not?”

  She answered with another question. “Is gaming your only weakness? Even if it is, though, it is still a serious one. It was the vice that ruined my mother's health and happiness and destroyed my life. My stepfather was a compulsive gambler.”

  “I never wager more than I can afford to lose,” he said gently. “Gaming is not a compulsion with me. It was only because a friend of mine was called away by his wife's confinement that I played against Bamber that night.”

  She laughed, though there was no amusement in the sound. “And so the last of my illusions must be abandoned?” It was not really a question.

  He gazed into her eyes and then raised her hand and held it to his lips. “What am I going to do with you?”

  She did not answer, but then he had not really expected her to. He bent his head closer to hers, his heart thumping painfully, not so much with the knowledge that he was about to kiss her as with the realization of what he was about to say and seemed powerless not to say. There was really only one solution to this situation he had found at Pinewood, and at the moment it was looking like a rather desirable one. It was time perhaps to trust again, even to love again, to take a leap of faith.

  “Miss Thornhill—” he began.

  But she snatched her hand from his and turned her back on him.

  “Gracious,” she said, “luncheon must have been ready ages ago. I forgot all about the time when you invited me for a walk. I suppose it was because of the chocolate and biscuits. I am glad you thought of refreshments. Some of the children have a long walk home from the village.”

  She did not want to be kissed. She did not want to listen to any sort of declaration. That was perfectly clear. Perhaps she would feel differently once she knew she had no other option except to leave Pinewood. But he felt a certain sense of relief, Ferdinand admitted to himself. A huge sense, in fact. He had no wish to marry. He had always been very firm in his intention never to do so. And pity was not a strong enough reason for changing his mind. It must be pity that had impelled him. It could not be love. Love was a word his father had always used with contempt—it was for females. His mother had used the word all too frequently. For her, Ferdinand had learned in his formative, impressionable years, love was self-absorption and manipulation and possessiveness.

  He must avoid being alone with Viola Thornhill in the future. He had just had a narrow escape. Yet a part of himself gazed at her with a certain yearning. He would miss her when she left Pinewood. She was the only woman he had come close to loving.

  “Shall we return to the house, then?” he suggested. “Do you need a hand?” The slope down to the avenue seemed even steeper when viewed from the top.

  “Of course not,” she said, gathering her skirts above her ankles with both hands and beginning a gingerly descent.

  Ferdinand loped down ahead of her and turned close to the bottom to watch her progress. She was running with small steps, and even as he watched she came faster, shrieking and laughing. He stepped in front of her and caught her as she came hurtling down. He lifted her off her feet, both arms about her waist, and swung her around in a complete circle before setting her down on her feet. Both of them were laughing.

  Ah, he was a weakling indeed, he thought a moment later as he kissed her, first lightly, then fiercely. He was a man who could not force his emotions and behavior to his will. But she did not resist him as she had done at the top of the hill. She clutched his shoulders and kissed him back.

  They released each other after a while, their eyes averted, their laughter gone, and began the walk back to the house side by side, not talking. Ferdinand's mind was in turmoil again. Should he or should he not? Did she wish him to or did she not? Would he regret it or would he not?

  Did he love her?

  It was on that question that his mind stuck. He knew so little about love—about real love, if there was such a thing. How could he recognize it? He liked her, he respected her, admired her, wanted her, pitied her—ah, yes, he pitied her. Pity was not love. He knew that much, at least. But was pity the dominant emotion he felt for her? Or was there more?

  What was love?

  He was still pondering the question when they circled the house to enter by the front doors. Jarvey was in the hall, looking important.

  “You have a visitor, my lord,” he announced. “From London. I have put him in the salon.”

  Ah, at last! Was it Bamber's solicitor or Bamber himself? Finally the question of ownership was to be settled. But even as Ferdinand turned toward the salon, the door opened and the visitor stepped out into the hall.

  “Tresham!” Ferdinand exclaimed, striding toward his brother, his boots ringing on the tiles, his right hand extended. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  His brother shook his hand, raised his eyebrows, and grasped the handle of his quizzing glass with the other hand. “Dear me, Ferdinand,” he said, “am I not welcome?”

  But Ferdinand was not to be cowed by the ducal hauteur, which could have almost every other mortal on the face of the earth quailing in terror. He squeezed his brother's hand and slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Did you come alone?” he asked. “Where is Jane?”

  “In London with the children,” the Duke of Tresham replied. “Our younger son is a mere two months old, you may remember. Being away from them is a severe trial to me, Ferdinand, but your need sounded greater than mine. What is this coil you have got yourself into, pray?”

  “No coil at all,” Ferdinand assured him heartily, “except that it did not occur to me when Bamber lost the property that there might be someone already in residence here.”

  He stepped aside and turned to make the introductions. He noticed that Tresham was already looking at Viola Thornhill across the hall and even raising his glass to his eye, the better to peruse her.

  “Miss Thornhill,” Ferdinand said, “allow me to present my brother, the Duke of Tresham.”

  Her face was an expressionless mask as she dipped into the slightest of curtsies. “Your grace,” she murmured.

  “This is Miss Viola Thornhill,” Ferdinand said.

  “Ah.” Tresham spoke with faint hauteur. He inclined his head but did not bow. “Your servant, ma'am.”

  There! Ferdinand thought indignantly. Now if only he could have behaved like that on the very first morning, she would have been gone within the hour. But at the same time he felt annoyed. This was his house and his problem. He did not need Tresham coming here to bedeck the poor woman with icicles at a single glance.

  She was half smiling, Ferdinand saw before he could step into the breach and create a more civil atmosphere. It was a strangely chilling expression and made her look quite different from usual.

  “Excuse me,” she said. She disappeared upstairs with straight spine and uplifted chin, very much on her dignity.

  Tresham was gazing after her with narrowed eyes.

  “Dear me, Ferdinand,” he muttered, “what have I walked in upon?”

  Viola went straight to her room and rang for Hannah. She stood at the window while she waited and gazed along the avenue where she had walked just a few minutes ago.

  She felt cold through to the v
ery heart.

  As soon as she had known who Lord Ferdinand Dudley was, she had thought he resembled his brother. She had met the Duke of Tresham once. They had been at the same dinner party—it must be four or five years ago. Both brothers were tall and dark and slender and long-legged. But there the resemblance ended, she realized now after seeing them side by side. While Lord Ferdinand was handsome, with an open, good-humored countenance, the duke was none of those things. His face was harsh and cold and arrogant. It was easy to understand why everyone feared him.

  Just there, she thought, her eyes on the distant hill, Ferdinand had held and kissed her hand and begun to ask her to marry him. She had not allowed him to speak more than her name, but she was convinced that that was what he had been about to do, presumptuous as it might be to believe it. For a moment she had been very, very tempted. It had taken all her willpower to snatch away her hand and turn the moment.

  He can destroy you—if you do not first snare his heart.

  She had not been able to bring herself to do it.

  And there, just there, she thought, moving her eyes lower, she had run shrieking and laughing into his arms and had kissed him with all the passion she had ruthlessly denied just a few minutes before. It had been one of those magical moments, like the throwing contest at the fête and the maypole dance and the kiss behind the oak. One more brief memory to tuck away for future comfort. Except that comfort would be all mingled up with pain.

  It would have been easy to snare his heart. And easier still to lose her own.

  The door opened behind her.

  “Hannah,” she said, “the Duke of Tresham has just arrived from London.”

  “Yes, Miss Vi.” Hannah did not sound at all surprised.

  “He recognized me.”

  “Did he, lovey?”

  Viola drew a slow, deep breath. “You might as well pack my things,” she said. “I think you might as well, Hannah.”

  “Where will we be going?” her maid asked.

  Again the slow breath. But it did not keep the tremor from her voice when she spoke. “I don't know, Hannah. I'll have to think.”

  “Come into the library,” Ferdinand said, leading the way. He felt a little embarrassed being caught returning from a walk with Viola Thornhill as if it were the most proper thing in the world to be sharing a house with a single young lady and living on amicable terms with her. He poured his brother a drink.

  Tresham took the glass and sipped from it. “You get yourself into the most unbelievable scrapes,” he said.

  Ferdinand felt irritated again. He was three years younger than his brother, and Tresham had always been autocratic, especially since inheriting the title and all the responsibilities that went with it at the age of seventeen, but Ferdinand was no longer a boy to be criticized and scolded—especially in his own home.

  “What was I supposed to do?” he asked. “Throw her out on her ear? She is convinced that Pinewood is hers, Tresham. Bamber—Bamber's father, that is—promised it to her.”

  “Are you sleeping with her?” his brother asked.

  “Am I… Good Lord!” Ferdinand's hands closed into fists at his sides. “Of course I am not sleeping with her. I am a gentleman.”

  “My point exactly.” Tresham had his quizzing glass in hand again. If he raised it to his eye, Ferdinand thought, he would be sorry.

  “It was rash of her to insist upon staying here with me, of course,” Ferdinand said. “But it is also a measure of the trust she has placed in me as a gentleman. She is an innocent, Tresham. I would not sully that.” He thought guiltily of the kisses he had shared with her.

  His brother set down his glass on a library shelf and sighed. “You really don't know her, then,” he said. “You have not recognized her. I suspected as much.”

  And Tresham did know her? Ferdinand stared as him transfixed, a premonition of disaster holding him motionless.

  “She has looked familiar from the start,” he said. “But I just cannot place her.”

  “Perhaps,” the duke said, “if she had introduced herself by her real name, Ferdinand, your memory would not have played such tricks on you. She is better known in certain London circles as Lilian Talbot.”

  Ferdinand stood where he was for a moment longer before turning sharply and crossing the room to the window. He stood there with his back to the room, all the cloudy layers ripping away from his memory.

  He had been at the theater in London one evening several years ago, sitting in the pit with some friends. The play had already begun, but even so, there had been a sudden noticeable stir from the boxes and a buzz from the predominantly male preserve of the pit. Ferdinand's nearest companion had dug him in the ribs with an elbow and pointed with his thumb toward the party arriving late in one of the boxes. Lord Gnass, an aging but still notorious roué, was removing the russet satin cloak of his female companion to reveal a shimmering gold gown beneath—and a daring amount of the voluptuous flesh of the woman inside the gown.

  “Who is she?” Ferdinand had asked, raising his quizzing glass to his eye, as a large number of other gentlemen were doing.

  “Lilian Talbot,” his friend had explained.

  It was the only explanation necessary. Lilian Talbot was enjoying enormous fame even though she was rarely seen in public. She was said to be lovelier and more desirable than Venus or Aphrodite or Helen of Troy all rolled into one. And almost as unattainable as the moon.

  Ferdinand had been able to see that reports of her had not been exaggerated. Even apart from her glorious, shapely body, she had a classically beautiful face and hair of a rich dark red set in elaborate but elegant curls high on her head and trailing down onto her long, swanlike neck. She sat down, set one bare arm along the velvet edge of the box, and directed her gaze toward the action on the stage as if she were unaware that the attention of almost the entire audience was on her.

  Lilian Talbot was London's most celebrated, most sought-after, most expensive courtesan. But part of her allure was the fact that no one, not even the wealthiest, highest ranked, most influential lord of the ton, had ever been able to persuade her to become his mistress. One night was all she would grant of her favors to any man. Some said that no one could afford more than that anyway.

  Lilian Talbot. Alias Viola Thornhill.

  I am no man's mistress.

  “I saw her only once at the theater,” Ferdinand said, staring at the fountain in the box garden without seeing it. “I never met her. Did you?”

  “Once,” Tresham said.

  Once? “Did you—”

  “No,” his brother replied coolly, without waiting for the question to be completed. “I preferred to mount mistresses for long-term comfort rather than one-time-only courtesans for sensation and prestige. What the devil is she doing here?”

  “She is a relative of Bamber's,” Ferdinand said, bracing both hands on the windowsill. “His father must have been fond of her. He sent her down here and promised to leave her Pinewood in his will.”

  The duke laughed derisively. “She must have serviced him well if he was prepared to offer her such an extravagant gift after one night,” he said. “Doubtless he paid her outrageous fee as well. But he came to his senses in time. It is why I am here, Ferdinand. You might wait until doomsday for Bamber to exert himself. I called on his solicitor and persuaded him to let me see the will. There is no mention in it of either Viola Thornhill or Lilian Talbot. And the present Bamber has never heard of the former, though perhaps he has of the latter. He was clearly unaware that she was living here. Pinewood Manor is without a doubt yours. I am pleased for you. It appears to be a pretty enough property.”

  Not a relative, but a satisfied customer.

  He loved me. Ferdinand could hear her voice down on the riverbank as if she were still speaking. And I loved him.

  Pinewood had been the impulsive gift of a grateful, dazzled man, who had just been well serviced in bed.

  I will never lose my trust in him because I will never stop
loving him or knowing beyond any doubt that he loved me.

  Even the most experienced courtesan could be naïve on occasion, it seemed. Bamber had changed his mind. Her trust had been misplaced.

  “You can order her off the premises without further ado,” the duke said. “I daresay she is even now packing her trunks—she knows the game is up. She could see that I recognized her. I will be eternally thankful that I did not bring Angeline with me. She wanted to come since Jane had to remain with the baby, but it has long been my practice to endure our sister's incessant chatter only in small doses. Besides, I believe Heyward said no even before I did, and for some reason I still have not fathomed—it is certainly not fear—Angeline obeys him.”

  But Ferdinand was not listening.

  It is because he gave it to me, she had said only an hour or so ago when he had asked why she loved Pinewood. London's most celebrated courtesan had fallen in love with one of her clients—and had made the cardinal mistake of believing that he loved her in return.

  “Where will she go?” he asked, more of himself than his brother. If she was no relative of Bamber's, her options were cut down considerably.

  “To the devil, for all I care,” Tresham said.

  Ferdinand's hands closed more tightly about the sill.

  “Good Lord, Ferdinand,” his brother said, “you have not conceived a tendre for the woman, have you? If this does not beat all—my brother infatuated with a whore!”

  Ferdinand gripped the sill as if for dear life. “Whatever she is,” he said without turning, “she is under my protection while she is beneath this roof, Tresham. You will not use that word either of her or to her while you remain here, or you will answer to me.”

  “Good God!” the Duke of Tresham said after a short, pregnant silence.

  11

  V iola dressed carefully for dinner in a pale blue silk evening gown, fashionably high-waisted Y and low at the bosom, but neither overdaring nor dowdily demure. It was one Mrs. Claypole herself had commended. Viola had Hannah dress her hair in a smooth, elegant chignon. She wore no jewelry, but only an evening shawl about her shoulders.