His Temporary Mistress

by Bethany Sefchick

  Then, Jeremy took another look at the unmasked zebra. At that point, his stomach dropped to his feet and he wondered if everything would ever be fine again.

  “I caught this man with a notebook, sir.” Adams gave the man a hard shake as the nameless flamingo helped Pike to his feet, offering him his cobra mask in the process. “It has names. Dates. He knew the rules and he broke them.”

  Recording anything about Dionysus’ weekly masquerades, or about what went on inside the club, was strictly against the rules. Oh, there were those who did so, for otherwise, how would the gossip rags know what went on behind these doors? No, this man’s notebook wasn’t what concerned Jeremy. It was his identity that did.

  “Mr. Hewson. How very surprising.” Jeremy nodded at Adams. “Let him up.”

  “Shouldn’t surprise you,” the other man snarled as he adjusted his jacket with a huff. “Man like you with his secrets and his wicked ways? You should expect just about anything.”

  Jeremy flicked his eyes to Richard who was frowning now as more of Dionysus’ guards began to crowd into the small foyer. If the other man was troubled, he was not showing it.

  “Still, I should not expect to see my mother’s solicitor at a debauched masquerade. What would she think?” Though Jeremy already had a pretty good idea what his mother thought about the matter.

  “She would think that I’m doing the job she paid me for,” Hewson shot back as he yanked his arm away from Adams’ tight grip. “You’re not fit to polish your brother’s boots and she knows it! She just needs to prove you’re unfit!”

  Meaning that his mother was trying to have Jeremy declared incompetent as well. And then name his cousin Arthur as the new duke when Wilson eventually died. The other man was an idiot and easily controlled, after all.

  “Yes, well, as you can see, I am presently of sound mind and body.” Jeremy would not do anything that might prove the case this man was trying to make against him. If he yelled and screamed and carried on, that might lead to accusations of instability. “As are you. So, if you will allow my man here to escort you outside, you may report back to my mother that, thus far, all is well here.”

  “Give her the child back, along with the money, and this all goes away.”

  Jeremy blood ran cold at those words, and he wondered how much this man knew about Maggie. Then he immediately decided he didn’t want to know. He would simply assume the worst.

  “No. That will never happen.” The only way Maggie would return to that house while his mother was still in it was over Jeremy’s dead body. And he didn’t plan on dying anytime soon.

  “You’ll be sorry.” There was an implied threat in the other man’s words, but Jeremy paid it no mind. He had bigger concerns just then.

  He shook his head and looked at his mother’s solicitor. Hewson was truly a despicable individual, which didn’t say much for his mother’s taste in hired help.

  “I rather doubt that.” Jeremy would have liked to simply give the man a good right hook and be done with things, but that would accomplish nothing and might cost him far too much in the end. “Though I will ask you to be gone now. This is my club after all. My guest list. And I am afraid you are not on it.”

  “This isn’t over,” Hewson snarled as he continued to wiggle in Adams’ grasp. “And if you think it is, then you are as daft as she says.”

  His night utterly ruined, Jeremy turned back to Dory. “If you will excuse me, sweet, I must attend…”

  But as it turned out, he was speaking to empty air, for Dory, his Lady Peacock, was standing beside the flamingo, a look of sheer terror in her eyes – meaning she likely knew the woman behind the flamingo mask. And the flamingo probably recognized Dory as well.

  Dory’s time here at Dionysus was over. Not unless she wanted to be revealed as Lady Peacock and be forced to endure endless gossip that would ruin both her and her family.

  Suddenly, Jeremy felt as if his world was beginning to collapse around him and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. Because he wasn’t ready for this to end yet. In fact, he wasn’t certain he would ever be.

  And that realization just made everything that much worse.

  Dory believed she noted a brief look of fear and anguish flash through Jeremy’s eyes when he saw her standing beside the young woman clad in the pink gown, but the moment was gone before she could be certain of what she saw.

  “Will you be fine without me for a bit, sweet?” he whispered into her ear when he leaned down as if to straighten her gown. “I really must attend to this.”

  “Go.” She smiled up at him with far more certainty than she felt. “I will see you later.”

  Jeremy nodded. “In my suite. You know the way.” Then he pressed a key into her hand. “Second floor. Last door on the left. Use it for as long as you need. I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed. When you are finished, use the bell pull inside should you need anything. It will bring Adams to you immediately.”

  Impulsively, Dory kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Raven. I shall see you in a bit.”

  His hand lingered for a moment on her cheek and then he was gone, escorting the man in the zebra mask away from the main floor, the stag and the cobra, who was now officially revealed to be Lord Trenton Pike, trailing behind.

  Which left Dory to deal with the flamingo. A flamingo that had no idea that behind Lady Peacock’s feathered mask lay one of her closest friends.

  “Come with me,” Dory said crisply, motioning for the other woman to follow her. “We’ve no wish to make a larger scene than we already have, do we?”

  With one last longing look at where Lord Pike had once stood, the flamingo shook her head. “No. We don’t.”

  Silently, the other woman followed Dory through the darkened hallways, all the while Dory’s heart beating furiously in her chest.

  How had today gone so wrong? Oh, wait. She knew exactly how. First, she had gotten into a snit with her sister and became determined to prove to everyone in her family that they were wrong about her. Except that she couldn’t tell them where she was going or that she was sneaking around with the man the majority of the ton considered sin personified.

  Because she had still been angry when she had arrived at the club, Dory had marched in here and caused a scene without stopping to use the brain in her head. She hadn’t taken a moment to consider exactly how bad this might look. How bad she might look. And how she might forever doom her chance of anything more with Jeremy if it ever came out that she was really Lady Peacock.

  Now she was about to be forced to confess her secret identity to one of her closest friends. Then again, her dear friend apparently had a confession of her own to make. So perhaps they were even on that score.

  Once they reached the room Jeremy had directed them to use, Dory allowed the other woman inside the already well-lit room before turning and locking the door behind them. Without hesitation, she reached up and unfastened the beautiful peacock mask before turning back to the lady in pink.

  “Well, Cecy. Don’t you think it’s time we both made some confessions?”

  Immediately, the other woman whipped off her flamingo mask and, as expected, revealed the face of one Miss Cecy Worth beneath. “Dory? This is where you’ve been sneaking off to?”

  “I could ask you the same question, Ce.” Dory leaned back against the door with a sigh, the wood there cool against her nearly bare back. “But yes. I have been coming here to Dionysus for over a month now. You had to know I was going somewhere.”

  Cecy’s brow furrowed and she waved a hand in the air. “Well, yes, but I never imagined you were coming here! Or to see him! The infamous Lord Raven of Dionysus! Dory, do you even know who he is?”

  “In reality, he is Lord Jeremy Dunn. Yes, Ce, I’m very well aware of whom I’ve been dallying with for the last month.” Lord above, did she ever!

  Cecy’s face blanched white, and she drew in a shaky breath as she reached for the back of a nearby chair to steady herself. “Dallying with?”

 
“A figure of speech,” Dory rushed to reassure her friend, fearing she had said too much. “But, yes, I knew who Lord Raven from the moment I walked in here with a ticket that I stole from Hugh, the man who is now my brother in law. Which, of course, we can all guess why he had, given what he does. Or rather, what he used to do. And before you can ask, for I know you will, I am Lady Peacock. There are pretenders, but I am the original.” She shrugged, for what did it really matter now? Soon all of London would probably know the truth. “The bigger question, I think, is how did you get in here, Cecy? And did you know that the cobra was Trent?

  Her friend looked away, embarrassed, her face flaming scarlet. “I sneaked in through the servants’ entrance tonight and no. I had no idea who the cobra was when I kissed him.”

  “You what?” Dory shrieked, her own sorry state of affairs quickly forgotten. “You kissed him? Cecy, no! I thought you said that you despised him!”

  Though really, the fact that her friend had felt strongly enough about the man in the cobra mask to kiss him spoke volumes about the often-combative relationship between her friend and the man who had been assigned to watch over her this Season.

  Cecy winced and sank into the chair she had been grasping onto as if for dear life. “Yes, well, that might have been a mistake. Parts of it. Maybe all of it. However, the point is, Trent doesn’t know the flamingo was me, Dory. He thinks he was kissing some harlot.”

  So he says, Dory thought to herself. I rather think a man as experienced as Trent probably knows the difference between an innocent and a harlot. Jeremy certainly did!

  Still, they were not here to debate whether or not Trent Pike knew who he was kissing just now. Dory needed to focus so that she could save her friend from potential ruin.

  “Be that as it may, Ce, you kissed him. So now what?” Dory crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you care for him?”

  Flustered, Cecy shook her head. “I have no idea. My relationship with Trent is…complicated. But let us not skirt around the issue, Dory. I may have kissed Trent, but I did so in private. Unlike a certain someone who quite literally plastered herself to Lord Dunn and all but undressed in front of everyone here!”

  “Er, about that…”

  “Yes?” It was obvious Cecy was not about to let the matter rest.

  “Could we just pretend you didn’t see that?” That was, of course, what Dory would have preferred.

  “Maybe.” Cecy looked at her friend askance. “If you can tell me why you did it.”

  “Why I did what?”

  “You know what. Kissed Jeremy Dunn as if he was the beginning and end of your world.”

  “Oh. That.” Well, her friend was blunt. And not one to shy away from a difficult conversation. Dory would give her that.

  “Yes. That.” Cecy crossed her arms over her chest and began tapping her foot, a sure sign she was irritated.

  Slumping back against the door once more, Dory picked at the golden lace of her gown. “I suppose because he is the beginning and end of my world. He is everything to me and I think I might be in love with him. I didn’t expect that to happen, Cecy. I really did not.”

  “Then how did it happen?” Cecy’s foot was tapping faster now. “People do not just fall in love in a single glance.” She paused. “Or do they?”

  “I did, though I cannot be certain what he feels for me. I fell a little bit in love with him the moment I saw him. Then I came to know him and I fell just a bit more. But I didn’t expect this. Truly, I did not.” Dory looked away, unable to meet her friend’s penetrating gaze. “I came here as a challenge, at first. I wanted to be bold and daring. My old self again. The person I was before Mrs. Smithson’s. A person you never knew.”

  Cecy’s gaze took in Dory’s scandalous gown. “Is this you, Dory? The woman you were before?”

  Dory finally met her friend’s eyes directly. “Partly. I was many things before, including a great deal that a lady of Quality should be.”

  “And now?”

  Dory bit her lip. “Now I am more than I ever was. Because of him. Because he sees me for what I am. He doesn’t look past me or pretend that I only exist within the context of another person. I can stand on my own and he can see me. You have no idea how…alluring that is to me.”

  Cecy gave her a knowing look. “I think I have some idea. Tonight? When Trent kissed me? He saw me as a woman and not just as…” She faltered and blushed then.

  “Saw you as more than what, Cecy?” Dory pressed. “Come on, Ce! This is me! Tell me. Please!”

  For a moment, her friend prevaricated before finally throwing up her hands. “He saw me as more than an annoying little girl that he has been forced to watch over against his will.”

  “And you liked it,” Dory added as she saw the blush creep up her friend’s cheeks. “More than liked it, I think.”

  “I like Trent,” Cecy admitted softly. “When he is not being an arse. But he doesn’t like me. I don’t think he ever will.” She shrugged and slumped down in the chair. “But he liked the flamingo. He liked her enough to kiss her. He never would have done that if he had known it was me.”

  Dory thought her friend would be surprised to know that Trent might feel differently given the way he often looked at her when he thought no one else was paying attention. “Perhaps. Or perhaps he kissed the flamingo because he couldn’t have you. Or thinks he can’t.”

  “I highly doubt that,” Cecy scoffed, some of her old self returning. “But enough talk of kissing. Because if I can’t get out of here undetected, I will have bigger things to worry about than whether or not Trent Pike wishes to kiss me. I will instead, likely be looking at marriage, though to whom is anyone guess. Probably some wrinkly old man, knowing my uncle. He would never ask Trent to wed me, for he has far bigger plans for his heir.”

  “About that.” Dory blew out a breath. “I can help you get out of here and locate a hack if there isn’t a free carriage already available. Since it is the night of the masquerade, Jeremy always makes certain that his guests can get home quickly and easily if necessary.”

  Cecy looked at her suspiciously. “How do you know so much about this place?”

  “I told you. I have been coming here for some time now. I have…learned things. Jeremy and I? We talk.” That was as much as Dory was willing to confess.

  “You speak about business.” Cecy nodded, pleased. “And you like it.”

  “I do.” What would it hurt to admit as much to her friend? “Not all of his affairs, mind you but a great deal of it, yes.”

  “You’ve a mind for business.” Cecy looked smug.

  “That is hardly ladylike.” Dory parroted the response her mother had drilled into her for years, as had Mrs. Smithson. The real Mrs. Smithson. “Not at all proper.”

  “But you still enjoy it.”

  “I do. I always have.”

  Cecy hugged Dory tightly, surprising the other woman. “Then your secret is safe with me.” She looked around. “Now how do I get out of here again? I have a feeling that if Trent hasn’t figured out my identity by now, he will the moment I return home. I will have some questions of my own to answer, I’m afraid.”

  Dory tugged on the bell pull. “Put on your mask and follow me once Adams arrives.” She paused. “And perhaps you have nothing to worry about where Trent is concerned. Perhaps he won’t guess.”

  “I rather doubt that,” Cecy sighed. “But this shall be what it shall be.”

  As Adams arrived to escort them down the back stairs and out of the club, Dory gave her friend’s arm a gentle squeeze. “I think you might be surprised at what comes next, Cecy. At least I hope you are. Pleasantly surprised.”

  Dory could only hope the same lay in the future for her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Do you really believe he’s coming out of his lifeless state? Finally?” Richard worried his mask between his fingers. “Is it actually possible that Wilson is recovering?”

  Jeremy and Richard had retreated to one of Jeremy’s
many offices within Dionysus. This one was mainly kept to deal with business concerning the masquerade, which seemed appropriate just then.

  “I doubt it,” Jeremy scoffed. “I don’t care what Hewson says. The man is a liar, and I’d not trust a word out of his mouth.”

  However, just because Jeremy didn’t believe the weaselly little man didn’t mean that a court of law would feel the same. And if Wilson was alive and became the duke again?

  Well, the title and the fortune could go hang. But what about Maggie? A child that Wilson didn’t even know existed? What would become of her?

  Jeremy was only her guardian because Wilson could not fill that role. If his older brother did finally recover? Then Maggie’s guardianship would pass to Wilson, along with all of the other responsibilities that Jeremy had assumed over the last few years. Out of all of those tasks, guardianship of Maggie was the only one that Jeremy was loath to give up.

  Though he would probably also hesitate to give up the care of the tenants on the various ducal estates as well. When Jeremy had taken over the running of Wyncliffe as a whole, everything had been in a shambles thanks to his mother’s profligate spending, decades of neglect from his father and his brothers’ lack of caring or true understanding of how businesses operated.

  Now, in only a few years, Jeremy had turned everything around, and all of the estates were profitable again, though some more than others. The tenants were no longer starving, necessary repairs had been made everywhere and finally, Wyncliffe could look to the future and know the dukedom would both survive as well as thrive.

  But would things remain that way if Wilson, who was quite possibly now brain-addled, took the helm again? Jeremy rather doubted it.

  “Is there anything you can do to find out for certain if he is recovering?” Richard looked around. “Other than leaving the club for a bit, of course, because the moment you are gone from London? That is the moment your mother will attempt to destroy what you’ve built with the help of her hired thugs.”