Mistress by Mistake

Chapter 8

Bay’s town house was a modest affair. As a single man he had no need for a vast quantity of bedrooms or servants. He’d lived in bachelor apartments when he sold out, spending most of his nights in the arms of either his mistress or a willing widow. He’d won the leasehold on Jane Street in a spectacularly lucky card game a little over two years ago. Lucky for him, at any rate. The Marquess of Angleton had been unhappy, his mistress even more so. Rumor had it she was so furious at Angleton for her eviction from “Courtesan Court” that she stabbed him with a fork. The man’s hand had been bandaged for weeks. Puncture wounds were the devil to heal.

But last year Bay had felt the need for more permanence and privacy, a place to hang the collection of paintings that were stacking up against the walls in his bachelor quarters for lack of space. He couldn’t spend all his time underfoot at Jane Street. Angelique and then Helena required their own privacy. Part of the mysterious allure of a mistress is that one didn’t see them all the day as they did whatever mistresses do to kill time. Cleaning their teeth. Applying honey masques to their faces and lemon juice to their hair. Reading gothic romances. Clipping their toenails. The extraordinary observed doing the ordinary soon loses its appeal.

He had enjoyed bathing with Charlie, however. And brushing her hair. He wondered how she would spend the rest of the afternoon. She seemed bookish. Perhaps he could order a set of novels from Hatchard’s for the house.

Bay’s front door opened before he even mounted the first step. His old batman, now butler-cum-valet, actually closed the door behind him and rushed Bay off the steps.

“Trouble, Frazier?”

“Aye, Major. Your wife is in the parlor.”

“I have no wife.” He did, once. For a little less than five months. And then her dead husband returned very inconveniently, making her an adulteress and Bay brokenhearted. He’d been too young to marry anyway. Just twenty. Anne had been twenty-two and the loveliest thing he had ever seen. Black hair. Blue eyes. Skin as white as milk and as smooth as cream. One morning she’d been snuggled in his bed in Dorset; by the evening she was being escorted back to Whitley’s estate by her papa. The scandal had been fierce. After a month of it, Bay had enlisted and directed his anger at the citizenry of France.

He placed a hand on Frazier’s and squeezed to stop him from dragging him down the street. “Halt. I’ll not run away.”

“Now, Major, you told me after the last time that I’m to talk sense into you. I’m just doing my duty.”

Bay pulled away and ran a hand through his still-damp hair. “How long has Lady Whitley been here?”

“Over an hour, sir. I tried to get her to leave but the b-woman won’t budge.”

Bay thought to reprimand Frazier for his hostility, but had learned when to pick his battles with the old Scot. To be fair, Frazier had every reason to dislike Anne. The man had dragged Bay away from enough bottles and beds after encounters with her. Bay had gotten better over the years, but Anne still had the power to make him feel like a jilted schoolboy.

“What does she want?”

“What she always wants, not that she’d bother to confide in me. You watch yourself, Major. Since that husband of hers died, she wants you back. And not just to diddle this time.”

Bay shut his eyes, hoping his neighbors were not peering out their front windows while he argued with his manservant. He was thirty-three years old. A decorated soldier, some might even say hero. The owner of three properties and sound investments. He was not going to let his past get the better of him, no matter how Anne’s lips moved in entreaty or her lush body beckoned. He had a mistress for all that.

“Tell you what, Frazier. Station yourself right outside the parlor door. When you hear me say-” He paused. What would make a good code word he could work into conversation?

“Bloody cow,” Frazier offered.

Bay cast him a stern look. “Hyde Park. Come in and tell me I have an urgent message. Speaking of which, any word from Mr. Mulgrew?”

“Aye. I meant to tell you that, too. Said he’s been to see the earl, and he has a lead. Has a man on his way to France. He’ll call on you tomorrow morning.”

Damn. He devoutly hoped for Charlie’s sake Mulgrew had not spilled the beans about Deborah taking the necklace. He’d definitely have to have a chat with Arthur’s father now, on some pretext or other. They didn’t precisely run in the same social circles.

Bay nodded and turned back toward his house. Frazier pulled on his sleeve again.

“Stay strong, Major. You’ve been in tougher battles.”

Bay barked out a laugh. He’d almost rather don a uniform again than face Anne Whitley in his own parlor.

He straightened and slid open the pocket door. She really had not changed at all since the last time he saw her. Of course, that was only weeks ago, soon after Whitley died and before he went to Dorset. She looked magnificent in black, like the ultimate chess queen carved by a master craftsman. She looked even more magnificent out of her widow’s weeds. It had not taken her long to shed them then, and would not take much to persuade her to go upstairs right now. Were he not so exhausted from his interlude on Jane Street, he might have been tempted for old times’ sake. They had fallen into such a routine over the years that he almost dreaded coming home on leave. She was sure to find him, and he was sure to wind up right where he knew he shouldn’t be.

But Whitley had been a bastard to her, or so she said. It had eased his guilty conscience some at the time to cuckold the man, but had not eased his heart.

“You look well, Lady Whitley. How may I be of service to you?”

“Bay, don’t be silly! Come sit down right next to me. I have been waiting for you for ages and ages.” She patted the sofa with a black-gloved hand, but she had removed her hat. Her hair was coiled neatly, wayward curls deliberately escaping around her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were the color of the autumn sky. He’d once placed a sapphire just their color on her finger.

“I’m afraid I’m not home for long.” There was no sign of a chaperone. He took the red brocade chair opposite. Even from across the room he could smell the rose perfume she had always worn.

“Surely you have time for me.” She smiled, both cheeks dimpling. She did not look like a woman of five and thirty, and knew it.

“What do you want, Anne? It’s not proper for you to be here.”

She frowned. “You don’t sound very friendly today. I thought you’d be pleased to know I’ve come back to town. Whitley Abbey was so dull and grim. Even though I’m in mourning, I cannot be expected to deprive myself of every pleasure, can I?”

Good lord. She was actually batting her eyelashes, one finger tracing the neckline of her black gown. Surely she was showing too much daytime décolletage for a grieving widow.

Bay felt almost as though he were seeing her as she was for the first time. She was no longer the artless young widow he’d married and loved so desperately. Nor was she his erotic fantasy come to life after months sleeping on the ground and getting shot at. She was still beautiful, but he simply didn’t feel the tug to his soul and his groin today that he always had. Could it be he’d finally come to his senses at last? Her years of reeling him in and tossing him back may have come to an end.

“You could have written. Then I could have written back telling you I have an appointment. In Hyde Park.”

Right on cue Frazier blustered in. “Major, you’ve got an urgent message. There’s no time to waste! You’ll have to excuse him, Lady Whitley. I’ll see you out.”

Anne looked from one to the other of them and burst into a peal of laughter. “Oh, you two! Just like a French farce. You’ll not fob me off with this nonsense. I’m not going anywhere, Frazier, and neither is Sir Michael until I’ve had my say. Go lurk somewhere else.”

Frazier was brick red, but left, shutting the door with an ominous thud. Bay thought the walls were still vibrating as he lifted an eyebrow at his former wife. “It’s for your own good, you know. You’re risking your reputation to be here in a gentleman’s establishment. Whitley’s only been dead two months. Even if you’ve decided to become a fast widow, you’re too fast for the ton.”

“How sweet of you to care. You were ever discreet while you cuckolded Whitley. But he knew all about us anyway.”

“Because you told him, Anne. To torture us both. I told you the last time we met that we were done.”

Anne focused on her lap, smoothing the fabric of her dress. “Yes, you did. But I read in the paper this morning your new mistress is now married. How did that come about? You had such great plans for her, as I recall.” She raised her eyes and smiled sweetly.

Bay should have known the announcement in the Times would be of interest to her. He relived the shouting match they’d had at the end of their affair in his mind, when he’d bragged about securing Deborah Fallon’s services.

“Don’t worry about me, my dear. I’ve made other arrangements already.” Bay went to the drinks table and poured himself a whisky. He did not offer one to his guest.

“My, you work fast. Who is the lucky girl this time?” There was an edge to her voice that Bay found quite gratifying. It was well past her turn to be jealous.

“No one you’ve heard of.” He took a sip of the amber liquid. He certainly wasn’t going to explain the mix-up with Deborah and her sister.

“Does this one look like me too?”

Bay put the glass down with a clack. He was well aware he had a ‘type,’ a preference for fair-skinned women with jet hair and blue eyes. He’d told himself it was just a matter of taste, like choosing a raspberry over a strawberry. He preferred raspberries. Some gentlemen preferred blondes. He had been attracted to Anne because of her coloring, and did not choose his mistresses because they resembled his not-quite wife.

“Still keeping tabs on me, Anne?” He stuffed his hands in his pockets to control the shaking.

“Well, you’ve hardly lived a secret life since you acquired the house on Jane Street. Everyone knows your business there, and who you do it with. Jane Street gentlemen are the envy of everyone. And that’s really why I’m here. I have a proposition for you.”

“Make it quick. I really do have an appointment.” With the glass on the table and the bottle next to it. Anne made him want to get foxed in the very worst way.

“When I lost our baby, I was crushed, Bay. A child would have made my marriage bearable.”

“Not for the child.” If Whitley had been cruel to Anne, he would have made Bay’s son or daughter’s life a living hell. It was for the best that Anne miscarried before she even knew she was enceinte.

“I would have done anything to protect your son, Bay. But it was not to be.” She sighed, looking her age for the first time this afternoon. “I wanted a child then and I want one now. Whitley was apparently incapable. But I know you are not.”

Bay’s throat was dry. “What are you saying?”

“I’m asking you to help me. I want a baby, Bay, before I’m too old.”

The room spun a bit. “You’re mad!”

“Am I? I’m to be thrown out of the Abbey into the Dower House. Again. And it’s in worse repair than it was thirteen years ago, when Clarence thought he inherited. Apparently, his wife finds me as much a distraction this time around as she did the last. I have no intention of living in that poky hovel this winter. I thought I might travel. While I’m abroad, I’ll adopt a foundling to keep me company. Your child, Bay. Something we made together to remind us of what once was.”

Bay picked up the whisky, draining the glass in one long swallow. “You can marry again once your year of mourning is over. Have a child with your new husband. It won’t be me.”

“I’m not asking you to marry me, Bay.” Her lips twisted. “In truth, I wish to be no man’s wife ever again.”

“Not every man is Whitley, Anne.” Whitley had become somewhat unhinged when he discovered the young wife he expected to be waiting for him had already remarried. He had survived a shipwreck, illness, and the perils of Africa, but could not survive the loss of his pride. Anne had suffered as much as Bay, if not more. It had changed her, although it had taken Bay years to see it.

She rose from the scarlet-striped sofa and picked up a feathery black bonnet. “Think about it.” She tied the black ribbons under her chin. “You know where to find me. If you agree, I promise to never bother you again once we’ve achieved our objective.”

When she left, he collapsed back into his chair. She was insane. She had to be. He was not a stallion to be put out to stud. And she was too smart to think he could simply father a child and walk away. Once she had known his every thought. He wondered if he had ever known hers at all.

After they had been forcibly separated, Anne had wanted to have her cake and eat it too. For years, Bay had begged her to run away with him. What was one more chapter to their book of scandal? They could have made a new life in the Americas, or settled quietly by the sea in Dorset again. But she was a viscount’s wife and mistress of Whitley Abbey. In the grand scheme of things, Bay was just a good fuck.

Frazier entered the room, plopping down on the sofa as if he owned it. In a way, he did. Bay would not be here without him.

“I see you’ve still got your clothes on.”

“Not for long if Anne gets her way,” Bay mumbled.

“Well, you’re a fine figure of a man. She’d have to be blind not to notice. But it’s time you looked to your future, not your past. Settle down. Have some bairns.”

“Have you been talking to Mr. Mulgrew?”

Frazier was the picture of innocence. “Why, yes. I told you he came to see you earlier.”

“As it happens, you and Mr. Mulgrew and even Lady Whitley all have something in common.”

“And what is that?”

“Mr. Mulgrew has advised me to marry. Lady Whitley just wants me to have a bairn.”

Frazier drew his wild red eyebrows together. “I beg your pardon?”

“Lady Whitley is feeling the urge for motherhood. Apparently, I’m to be the father.”

Frazier leaped up. “Never say you’ll be marrying that woman! She’s not good for you, Major! Oh, I grant she’s an eyeful and an armful, but you want someone better than that. Someone who will stick by you and be true, not toy with your affections. Forgive me for speaking my mind-”

“As if I could stop you.”

“-but that woman is not nice. Oh, she may have been when she was a girl and you married her. But look how she’s treated you over the years, blowing hot and cold. Using you to punish her husband. Why, the man practically killed you once! And still, you went back every time she lifted her little finger.”

“I loved her,” Bay said simply. “She was my wife, no matter what the legalities were.”

“Och, you loved what she did to your pecker. You were just a boy. What did you know about love? And then when you stared down death at every turn, it’s no wonder you sought some comfort. But you’ve a fine life now, and a pretty new mistress from what I hear, though Mrs. Kelly says this one’s a bit of a thief. You really do need a wife, sir. Someone to save you from designing women.” Frazier paused to take a deep breath, but Bay had a feeling he was not done. “You’re a smart lad. A good catch. You served your country well. The old scandal has died down by now. If you spent more time at parties and such and less time on Jane Street, I imagine you could catch yourself a wife by Christmas.”

“I am touched by your confidence, Frazier. And who might this paragon be?”

His servant gave him a cheeky grin. “A blonde. With big brown eyes.”