His Secret Mistress

by Cathy Maxwell

  Bran crossed to the front door to open it. Before he could reach for the handle, the door flew open. Lucy stormed in, her arms pumping with her fury. “You told him. You should not have told him.”

  Bran had no doubt about who “him” was. “Come in, Your Grace. Would you like something to drink?”

  His sister’s eyes appeared ready to skewer him for his insolence. “I want nothing to drink. I want answers. Why did you tell him without consulting me?”

  “Are you talking about the state of his affairs? Or my liaison with Miss Addison?”

  Lucy went rigid. Her head circled in the air as if she was ready to swoon. She found her grounding. “Liaison?” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to know what you do with that harlot—”

  “Careful. I will not have you speak ill of her.”

  “How can you defend her? She broke my son’s heart.”

  “She didn’t encourage him. I watched her. She was circumspect. He encouraged himself.” Bran stopped, puzzled. “Wait, Lucy, I thought you wanted your son away from her?”

  “I did not want him rejected.”

  “You aren’t making sense. Dear God, I could use a drink.”

  “Winderton wants you to leave. He has ordered it.”

  That was beyond enough. “I’m not leaving, Lucy.”

  “You can’t stay here.”

  Bran stared at his sister. “I own here.”

  “I denied everything you said,” she announced.

  “Helpful of you, Your Grace.”

  “I wouldn’t have had to do it if you hadn’t talked to him without discussing the matter with me first.”

  “And did he believe you?”

  “You know he didn’t.”

  “I definitely need a drink for this conversation. Where is that port? Do you wish one?” he asked his sister.

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “And why are you walking off when I am talking to you?”

  “Then follow,” he threw over his shoulder.

  Reaching the pantry, he uncapped the decanter. He took a cup and poured himself a generous measure.

  Lucy appeared at the pantry door. “I’ve never seen Winderton so upset. He’s young—”

  “He’s coddled. He needs to be out in the world.” Bran downed the drink. “He also needs to understand that nothing is handed to a man just because he has a title. He must earn his rightful place, not whine about it.”

  Lucy frowned like a hen eyeing a distasteful worm. “What has come over you? You sound angry. And I should mention that he, too, is drinking hard spirits this early in the morning. See? He isn’t that coddled.”

  “Drinking does not make a man.”

  His sister shrugged. “Says you with a drink in your hand.”

  Her words reminded Bran of his and Kate’s game about being “naked.” He wished Kate was here instead of Lucy. His sister was infuriating, and Bran was tired. Too much was happening over which he had no control. “Lucy, nothing happened to Christopher other than that his pride was bruised which isn’t a bad thing for any of us from time to time. You didn’t want him with Kate Addison. Well, he isn’t with her. But I am.”

  “And I am supposed to be at peace with that?”

  “You aren’t supposed to be anything. It is my life.”

  She made a disgruntled sound. “Next thing I know, you will be telling me you want to marry her.”

  “I do.”

  He’d answered without conscious thought. The words had just flowed out. Bran frowned, examining what he’d just said and discovered it was true. He did wish to marry Kate. He certainly wasn’t going to allow her to go to another man. She was his.

  Lucy appeared horrified. “Are you mad? She’s as old as you are.”

  He was still trying to overcome his own shock at his statement. “You are right. She is old.”

  “You won’t have any children.”

  “Possibly. I haven’t ever felt the need for any.”

  “Younger women are more biddable.”

  “They would bore me.”

  Lucy rocked back throwing her hands up in the air. “The world has gone mad,” she muttered. “It is as if no one knows their place anymore. Or values their class.”

  “I make my own place, Lucy. I’m the son of a younger son.”

  “That doesn’t mean you throw all opportunities away with a misalliance.”

  “I could see how you would declare the duke was making a misalliance, though I might not agree with you. But that’s not the point here, I just want to marry the woman I love. The woman I’ve always loved.”

  “This is not going to sit well with His Grace. He is inconsolable. He’s saying all sorts of outlandish things.”

  “And he will for a while. But he will recover. He will find someone else to love. Kate is mine.”

  Lucy had to hyperventilate a moment. Bran ignored her, walking back to the front room. His earlier restlessness was gone, replaced by certainty. He was in love. This was what love felt like. He could even imagine their future. They’d set up house together. She’d quit the theater. Take care of him. This was not a bad plan. Being in love was convenient.

  “And what of Christopher?” Lucy asked. She leaned against the hallway wall.

  “He will be angry but this is a lesson Winderton needs to learn—”

  “Angry? He is furious. Especially about your money. He demanded to know what we have been living on since the estate isn’t in his name.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  She looked stricken. “I had no choice. I told him about the allowance you gave us.”

  “And he didn’t take that well.”

  “Did you not hear me? He is livid. He went running out of the house like a madman. I don’t know where he has gone. I don’t know what he is doing. Could we not have kept it our secret—at least a bit longer?”

  “We kept it a secret too long. Here is the push he’s needed to go out into the world—”

  Lucy interrupted him with a mother’s cry of alarm. “I like him in Maidenshop.”

  “Maidenshop is too small a place for him. He should be in London.”

  “Where there are more actresses. Who knows what trouble he will find for himself? Just like his father did. What if he has a penchant for gambling the way his father did?”

  There was the root of Lucy’s fears. “I will talk to him.”

  “Right now he despises you.”

  “Right now, if he is anything like he was an hour or so ago, he is drunk. Once he sobers up and accepts that Kate’s not for him, then we can discuss his future. I told him I have no desire to keep Smythson. But before I let go, he has to know how to manage a property such as this and be responsible enough to do so.”

  Large tears welled in his sister’s eyes. “Come, Lucy, stop this. All will be well.”

  “For you and your actress, perhaps. If you have your way, my son will be in the city, but what about me, Brandon? Everyone will be leaving me.”

  Here it was, the heart of the matter . . . and he’d believed her fears were for her son. “Your Grace,” he kept his tone soft, compassionate, “the time has come to set aside your mourning. No woman could have been a better wife to your husband than you. However, rusticating here is not doing you good. You would also benefit from a bit of Town bronze. You can stay at my house since the place Winderton owns is not comfortable.” Or truly habitable. Gone were the days when the Duke of Winderton kept two staffs, one for the country and one for the city. “You can call on old friends.”

  “They have all forgotten me. No one likes young widows.”

  “Perhaps, but they do like single duchesses.”

  “I’m a dowager.” Her wail made it sound as if it was a crime.

  “Lucy, let go of the black. Come back into the world. Who knows what adventure awaits you?”

  A tear she had struggled to hold back slipped down her cheek. He wiped it away. “All will be well,” he promised.

  “Even if it is not,”
she admitted sadly, “the damage has been done.”

  “Or we have opened ourselves up to embrace the new.”

  “I don’t want to sit at a table with an actress.”

  “Then we won’t see each other often.”

  “I don’t wish that.”

  “Don’t think too far ahead,” he advised. “I will go to Winderton after he has had a chance to sober up and try to make him see the bright side of all this.”

  “I pray you do.” She walked out the door like an aristocrat facing the guillotine—resolute, tragic, forlorn.

  Bran walked to the door and watched the footmen help his sister into the vehicle. He waved as they drove away before closing the door.

  His first impulse was to go to Kate, to tell her he wanted to marry her. He decided against it. The hour was too early and his love was probably trying to catch some sleep, something he needed as well.

  Lucy bouncing on the bed woke Bran.

  At first, he thought he was dreaming. He felt like he’d just closed his eyes.

  She proved she wasn’t a dream by shaking his shoulder. “Brandon, wake up. Wake up!”

  “What?” He was never good first thing after sleep. “Lucy, what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to say that you are wrong. You said that all would be well. It isn’t.”

  “And why is it not?”

  His sister held out a letter. “This is from Winderton. I found it on the desk in his room. If I hadn’t just happened to go in there, I would never have seen it.”

  “Lucy, you go into his room several times a day.”

  “No matter. He writes to inform me he has eloped with his actress.” She dropped the letter on his chest. “Do you wish to tell me now how everything will be fine?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “What?” Bran picked up the letter. It was Winderton’s hand. He was very direct:

  My life has been a lie—

  “That is dramatic of him,” Bran muttered. “I wonder whom he takes after.”

  Lucy snorted her opinion.

  —I seek my own purpose in life—

  “Another piece of nonsense,” Bran observed.

  —I am eloping with the woman I love. I’ll repay you for the horses once I’m established.

  There was no signature.

  Bran stared at the words. “Kate wouldn’t have said yes.”

  “Apparently she has.”

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “She did.”

  Bran crushed the letter in his hand. “She couldn’t.”

  But she could. She had done it before. With Hemling. Only he had forced her.

  Could Winderton be that crass? If he attempted to harm Kate in any way, Bran would kill him.

  Nor did it help that old doubts resurfaced. It had taken him a month to leave London and she’d stayed with Hemling the whole time and longer, by her own admission.

  The woman he loved. Winderton had only loved Kate.

  “His Grace took two horses from the stables,” Lucy said. “He told the stable lads to saddle Lolly because the lady who would be using her was not accustomed to hard riding. And then he set off in the direction of the actors.”

  “When was this?”

  “Four hours ago.”

  Four hours? “What time is it?”

  “Half past two.”

  Bran could catch them. “It isn’t Kate with him. She wants to go to London.”

  “As a duchess, which is what she’ll be if they marry, she may go wherever she wishes.”

  Her statement brought him up short. Jealousy was an ugly emotion. Bran didn’t want to feel it, and yet it was there.

  Kate couldn’t have chosen to go with Winderton. Bran refused to believe it—which meant she could be in trouble.

  He sat up and reached for his breeches, the sheet across his lap. “You may wish to turn around.”

  Seeing he was about to stand, his sister gave a squeak and quickly stepped out into the hall. She half closed the door, her back to it, so that she could speak to him. “I warned you that my son was going to do something irrational.”

  “None of it makes sense,” he muttered.

  “It does. He’s run away with that actress. She’s agreed to go. Why did you tell him the truth? Why?”

  Because Winderton was not a bloody child, he wanted to retort. Instead, he swore under his breath and buttoned his breeches. In fact, in all of Winderton’s complaints this morning, the one issue he was right about was that his uncle and mother should have been more honest with him. “When did you last see Winderton?”

  “Shortly before I confronted you this morning. I went searching for him around eleven. I was worried. He was so quiet. He wouldn’t talk to me when I tried to discuss the matter civilly after speaking to you. He wouldn’t even open the door to his rooms.”

  There was probably no “civilly” about what she had to say. “Well, Miss Addison is on the stage at this moment. So, if you are right and she has run off with him, he is still at her theater.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “I know Kate. She won’t miss a performance.”

  “Men are such goats. They think they know everything.” She threw this out in disgust while giving him an evil eye through the crack in the door.

  Bran’s response was to shut the door. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

  She stomped down the hall and Bran took a deep breath. Kate wouldn’t have left with Winderton. She wouldn’t, unless the duke forced her.

  Or she had been playing both Bran and the duke, an evil voice inside of him whispered.

  If she had been, then Lucy was right—would such a woman turn down being a duchess?

  Within the half hour, the dowager and Bran were on their way to the actors’ encampment. Lucy, who rarely drove herself anywhere, was so upset she drove them both in her gig.

  They arrived just as the play was coming to an end. They had heard the cheer of the crowd from the distance and now people were milling around.

  Sitting in the gig, Bran scanned those gathered around the stage for a sign of Kate and Winderton.

  Since Lucy’s first crazed charges that had inspired his doubts, he’d managed to regain his perspective. Kate would not have eloped with Christopher. It defied common sense.

  Still, where was she?

  He climbed out of the gig, helping Lucy down as well. Mrs. Warbler was talking to the Irish actor. She had a sketchbook in her hand. She had been at every production Bran had. She’d sit in a bench off to the side and scribble away, an ink bottle uncapped at her feet. She was “writing,” she told everyone and came to the plays to “study” what the playwright had done. Bran had just assumed it was another eccentricity of the woman.

  Lucy spied her friend. “Elizabeth!”

  “Don’t make a scene,” Bran said under his breath. “The fewer who know what is going on, the better.”

  His sister nodded. Mrs. Warbler came trotting over. “How good to see you, Your Grace. You missed this afternoon’s performance.”

  Bran took over. “Where is Miss Addison?”

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Warbler answered. “She wasn’t at this afternoon’s performance.”

  Kate not at a performance?

  Lucy brought her hand down on his arm in a death grip of fear, and a reminder that she had warned him.

  “There was a good reason,” he assured her, and himself. He left the women to walk to the stage. The Irishman had a group of young belles that included Squire Nelson’s daughter around him. Bran walked past him, jumped up on the stage, and saw Silas in the tent. He walked up to him. “Where is Kate?”

  The old man gave him a considering look. “She is around here some place.”

  “Where some place?” Bran asked, his voice deepening with his frustration.

  Silas raised his chin, his mouth curling into a frown. “She is around, sir.”

  That wasn’t the answer Bran wanted. He reached for the smaller man, grabb
ed him by his Aesop costume and practically lifted him from the ground. “When did you see her last?”

  “I don’t see why I have to answer you at all,” Silas returned, his own fists doubling.

  “Brandon, Brandon,” Lucy said coming up to him. “It is true, Brandon. What we feared has come true.”

  Rage filled him. It couldn’t be true. Not again. Not a second time. He couldn’t lose her a second time. He loved her.

  She loved him. He believed it to his bones . . . which meant she had been coerced in some manner—or he could be wrong.

  He practically threw the old actor away from him. Silas made a loud grunt as he landed against a stack of trunks. Bran had been too rough, but before he could speak, Lucy broke down into loud wailing as if mourning the dead—

  “What did you do to Silas?” Kate’s sharp voice broke through the noise.

  From the corner of his eye, she came running toward her actor. She reached out to help him. Silas gave another shout of pain as if Bran had done far more than he had.

  Bran didn’t care. Here she was. “Where is he? Where is Winderton?”

  Kate rounded on him. “What is the matter with you?”

  But Bran was too caught up in the moment to answer her questions. “Is he forcing you? Or did the two of you plan this?” He caught her by the arms, desperate for an answer.

  “No one is forcing me to do anything,” Kate started, however Lucy interrupted.

  “Where is the duke? Where is my son?”

  Bran ignored his sister. Instead he looked into Kate’s eyes. “You are not being forced? You are leaving of your own choice?”

  “No one forces me to do anything,” Kate assured him, and it was the wrong thing to say.

  The jealousy that had once propelled him halfway around the world to put distance between them reared its ugly head. “You made a mistake then, Kate. You chose the wrong man. Winderton has nothing.”

  Beside him his sister gasped her distress. “No.”

  “I’m the one with the money,” Bran charged on. “I own Smythson. I own it all and it could have been yours—because I was going to be foolish enough to ask you to marry me. I would have given you everything including my name. And yet, once again, you made the wrong choice. So be happy with Winderton. I don’t want someone so faithless. And to think I loved you—” He released his hold and turned away, but Kate grabbed his coat.