Temporary Mistress

Chapter Four

IN THE LATE FORENOON, the Leslies were assembled in the small chapel where the service for George Leslie was about to commence.

"I tell you, she won't miss her grandfather's funeral," Harold whispered, his gaze on the doorway.

"I hope you're right," his father muttered, casting another glance at the entrance. "Or we're going to have to search the entire city for her."

"She has no friends, no money, and Lampert's frightened enough not to give her assistance. And if he should find his courage, we've plenty of men watching his office and home."

"Then it's just a matter of time. Who else can she turn to? She has to come to him eventually."

The minister began reading from the funeral text, his voice carrying out over the small group.

"It looks as though she's not coming," Harold grumbled, taking out his watch from the tightly stretched pocket of his striped vest and surveying the painted face. "I hope this doesn't take too long. I've a race meet at two."

"My milliner is coming to the house at one," his mother whispered across her husband's rotund form. "And she's considerably more important than this useless funeral."

Herbert waved his ringed hand at the minister, indicating he speed up the proceedings. Herbert had a card game he didn't wish to miss.

And so George Leslie was hurriedly sent from this world with little fanfare and less sorrow.

Mr. Lampert watched the brief ceremony with a grim expression, and when he left the chapel, he went to neither his office nor his home. He walked to a bookstore on Albemarle Street and took inordinately long to purchase one book.

It was a waste of time to follow him, Herbert's man reported that evening.

The old man had spent the entire day in a tavern, drinking one pot of ale and reading.

Out of courtesy, Molly had seen that Isabella was alone when the letter from Mr. Lampert was delivered.

Isabella's hands were shaking as she broke the seal and opened the single page.

I'm being watched, he wrote, so don't send a message directly to me. Your grandfather was buried this morning and is being conveyed to the vault at Tavora House. Mr. Martin has money for you should you need it but take care approaching the shop. I'm not sure how many spies your uncle has in the city. I wish I could do more. And he'd signed his name with a shaky hand.

Isabella immediately wrote a reply, telling Mr. Lampert not to worry about her. She needed neither help nor money at the moment. And when the time was appropriate, she would explain her circumstances.

She tried to read again afterward, but her mind was consumed with having missed her grandfather's funeral, and the book lay unread in her lap. She should have been with him as he was put to rest, she thought; it would have been the last service she could offer him. And regret of what might have been lowered her spirits. But reminders of her despicable relatives evoked a simmering anger as well, and she took a degree of pleasure in planning revenge.

Her uncharitable impulses offered a kind of respite, however meager, to her sadness while the troubling uncertainties of her future brought further disarray to a mind already in turmoil. She might be able to maintain an air of resolve concerning her circumstances in the company of Mrs. Crocker, but once alone, she wasn't sure she possessed the courage to actually see it through.

Regardless Bathurst's appeal.

Regardless he was probably her best option.

Regardless he seemed to want her.

And she him.

Such outlandish possibilities shocked her when she allowed herself to consider them, as did the strange and curious desires evoked by the beautiful young earl. But contemplation of Bathurst also generated intoxicating, thrilling tremors deep inside her, and she clasped her hands together tightly on the book lying in her lap to still her trembling emotions.

How should she deal with her feverish response, she wondered, and her only companion in life unconsciously came to mind. Silently, she spoke to her grandfather, the simple act of communicating offering her solace. As she explained her feelings, it seemed as though he were with her again, as though she weren't so alone. She even found herself describing the handsome young earl as though her grandfather might enjoy a description as much as she.

She smiled at the ludicrousness of her imaginary conversation. But a comforting ease overcame her as she offered the bits and pieces of her tremulous thoughts-until a knock on the door interrupted her reflections and a second later Mrs. Crocker bustled into the room, followed by several maids laden with colorful gowns and accessories.

"We brought some things to cheer you up," she briskly said, indicating the items be placed on the bed. "Have you written a reply to your lawyer yet? Dermott's man is downstairs."

"I'll get it." Rising from her chair, Isabella walked to the small table where her note lay and handed it to a maid.

"The earl's man is a precaution, should anyone be watching," Molly explained.

"Thank you for your caution and your company as well. I find myself too alone with my thoughts."

"Exactly why you need a diversion. I had Madame Duclaisse send over some frocks to amuse us."

"I shall pay you, of course."

"At your leisure, my dear. Come now," she said, sitting down, "which would you like to try on first?"

Isabella selected a morning gown, her immediate need that of replacing her robe. The pale blue gauze was embroidered with a wide row of floral designs at the hem, but the simple lines were otherwise unadorned.

Not unfamiliar with servants, although she'd preferred living without a lady's maid, Isabella allowed the girls to help her dress. Mrs. Crocker had thoughtfully provided a chemise of the finest lawn, and after quickly discarding her robe and having the chemise slipped over her head, Isabella tried on the blue day dress.

"You have an eye for size." Isabella twirled before a cheval glass, the belled skirt billowing out around her.

"It was easy. You're the same size as Kate… one of the ladies here," she added in explanation. "The blue is excellent with your eyes."

"It is rather nice."

"Try on some of the slippers. There's some matching ones in several sizes."

A perfect fit was selected from the array, and she could have entertained royalty in her elegant gown. "I must say, a pretty dress always does wonders for one's disposition."

"My feeling exactly. Do try the apple-green silk next. The cashmere shawl is a delicious contrast."

"I don't plan on stepping out just yet," Isabella playfully noted, although the delectable fabric was alluring. Napoleon had introduced cashmere shawls to Europe after his Egyptian campaign only a few years past, and they were the height of fashion. And very dear.

"For when you do, then. I kept two of them for myself." Mrs. Crocker waved to have the green silk brought over. "Humor me. That color is going to be adorable with your coloring."

Before long, a half dozen dresses had been tried on and the room had the air of a dressmaker's salon, piles of colorful silks and gauzes scattered about the room, shoes and shawls and bonnets adding to the flower-garden effect. Mrs. Crocker had had a bottle of iced champagne brought in to add to the festivities. After having put on a rose-colored silk afternoon dress awash with ruffles they'd both agreed were overdone, Isabella and Molly were giggling over the ostentatious confection and casting on eye on the next possibility in their private fashion show.

"You're a trifle young for black lace, but try that one on anyway."

"It has the air of seduction."

"The point, I'm sure. Let's see it-just for fun."

Dermott had spent the morning at Tattersall's adding to his racing stable and had taken lunch at Brooks's afterward. He'd gone home for a time, intent on discussing some business affairs with his secretary and steward. But he found himself unable to concentrate on the ledgers and correspondence, and his employees exchanged speculative glances after he said "Would you repeat that" for the tenth time. They politely repeated their statement, only to find the earl indifferent to the crop figures he normally followed with great enthusiasm. After returning from India, he'd had the means to see to enormous improvements at Alworth. And until that day, he'd taken a detailed interest in each rick of hay and bushel of wheat, every head of cattle and sheep his acres produced.

"If you'd prefer discussing the crop projections some other time," Shelby, his secretary, suggested.

A small silence fell.

The young man was about to repeat himself, when the earl pushed away from the desk and stood. "Some other day would be preferable," he said, glancing at the clock on the mantel.

Both men came to their feet.

Another awkward silence filled the large study. The earl seemed not to take notice of them, his dark eyes shadowed by his lowered lashes, his mouth pursed.

The steward cleared his throat and Dermott's lashes lifted. "Thank you very much." His smile was distant. "We'll do this another day."

He remained standing for several moments after the door closed on his employees, his large frame immobile, even his breathing difficult to perceive in the stillness of his pose. "I shouldn't go," he murmured into the hushed room.

He raised his hands to his fashionably windswept hair and raked his fingers through the heavy waves. Softly swearing, he held his head between his palms for a transient moment and then, exhaling, dropped his hands. "How the hell can it matter," he muttered, and strode toward the door.

But he resisted still, and once arriving at Molly's, he strolled into the card room and joined a game. He lost, and the rarity of the occurrence caused him to give in to his impulses. Excusing himself to the wide-eyed group of men who speculated once he'd gone that he was surely ill to have overlooked a straight flush, the earl took the stairs to the main floor in a run and walked into Molly's apartments without knocking.

He heard the giggling from the bedchamber immediately on entering the sitting room, recognizing the women's voices. He knew Molly's as well as his own. The other trilling tone was the reason he was there.

Against his better judgment.

Against every principle of disinterest he'd nurtured since his return to England.

He should have knocked, but bad tempered at his need, impelled by desires he'd tried to resist all day, he invaded the women's room like a man intent on plunder.

Molly said, "Hello, Dermott," her voice remarkably calm, her gaze knowing.

And the young woman who had dominated his thoughts since the night before whispered, "Oh, no!" in the merest of breaths.

"Join us in some champagne," Molly invited the earl.

He looked at her as though he'd not heard, his gaze immediately swinging back to Isabella, standing in the middle of the Aubusson carpet, her eyes wide with shock. She was dressed or, more aptly, undressed in black lace over flesh-colored silk mousseline, and he restrained himself from moving forward, picking her up, and throwing her on the bed.

"Do you like the dress?" Molly asked.

He forced himself to respond. "Yes," he said. His nostrils flared as he drew in a calming breath. "Very much."

"Isabella wasn't sure it suited her."

"It does." Like sorcery suits an enchantress, he thought, not sure he cared to stay in the same room with a woman who could make him forget everything but lust.

"There, you see?" Molly smiled at Isabella and then, turning to Dermott, who'd not advanced past the threshold, she asked, "Would you like to see another gown on Isabella?"

"No." Male and female voices, instant and soft, spoke in unison.

"Very well." Molly waved the servants out and crooked a finger at Dermott. "Come in and join us." She patted a chair beside hers. "I hadn't expected you so early. Did you have good luck at Tattersall's this morning?"

The commonness of her question set the tone, and Dermott brought his errant senses to heel. "Very good luck," he replied, moving toward her. "I found two yearlings with promise and Harkin's roan was on the block."

"So you helped ease Harkin's gambling debts?"

"I may have paid them off," the earl noted, taking the chair beside Molly and sliding into a sprawl. "That roan is a damned fine racer."

"Do join us, Isabella." Molly pushed a delicate fauteuil forward.

There was no way to refuse and not look like a child, so Isabella tamped her feverish emotions with supreme effort and walked across the pale carpet.

He watched her from under his lashes.

Skittishly aware of his gaze, Isabella approached them with a wildly beating heart and pinked cheeks.

She fairly glowed, the provocative juxtaposition of trembling innocence and flamboyant sensuality intense, her ripe body displayed in all its splendor beneath the sheer black lace, her downcast gaze chaste as a virgin's.

Which thought momentarily disconcerted him, but anyone with a body like Venus herself couldn't be completely chaste, he decided. As if reason were a requirement with the state of his erection. He shifted marginally to ease the tightness of his trousers.

His movement, however slight, drew Isabella's gaze, and her breath caught in her throat. He was blatantly aroused, the black knit fabric of his trousers tightly stretched. And for the first time in her life, she felt a heated shimmer deep within the core of her body, the feeling so exquisite, she came to a halt.

He smiled as if he understood.

She smiled back because she couldn't stop herself.

And Molly thought it best to slow the pace. She wished her young guest to acquire some of the expertise necessary to entice more than Dermott's fleeting lust. "You must tell Dermott of your cartography society," Molly declared. "Miss Leslie owns an uncommon library of rare maps," she added, turning to Dermott. "Pour us all some champagne, and you can compare your visions of the world."

His vision at the moment had to do with a finite view of the paradise between Miss Leslie's legs, but he could see that Molly was intent on putting pause to their heated encounter, and no one ever bested Molly in a confrontation. "Really?" he said, reaching for the bottle in the bucket of ice. "Not the library in Grosvenor Square?"

"You know of it?" A new concentration overtook the fever of arousal, and Isabella took her seat with them.

"I've been there only twice. I didn't realize you were that Leslie, nor that the banker who held my mortgages was your-"

"Grandfather," Isabella quickly supplied. "My goodness!" She felt as though she knew him suddenly, his recollection of their connection enough to make him not so much a stranger who took her breath away but a family friend-who took her breath away, she reflected with an inner smile.

"Isabella will be staying with us for a few days," Molly noted, offering the information as though they'd not discussed her previously over breakfast.

"Lucky for us." Dermott leaned over with a glass of champagne for Isabella, careful not to touch her fingers. Regardless Molly's presence, he couldn't guarantee his docility.

The scent of him wafted over her as he leaned close, and heady with the fragrance of maleness and fresh citron, Isabella took the glass from him and proceeded to drink a good deal of it in one swallow.

Her agitation was appealing. Of course, what about her wasn't appealing, he mused, concentrating with effort on what Molly was saying as she offered him a plate of petit fours.

"She was thinking of perhaps acquiring some additional skills while she's with us," Molly declared, putting the plate down at his refusal.

Suddenly his attention was fixed, his gaze intense. "Additional…" he murmured, his glance swinging over to take in the disconcerted Miss Leslie.

"Isabella requires safeguards… protection from an unwanted marriage."

"I see." His dark gaze held Isabella's.

"Something in the way of a denouement."

"Ah…" His voice was like velvet.

Mesmerized, charmed, warmed by the sultry heat of his regard, Isabella felt as though he might indeed be her white knight in this outlandish predicament. "I have relatives who wish my fortune," she murmured, half breathless under his spell.

"I could call them out." A strange obligation overcame him, as though he should offer her something for what he was about to receive.

"You would kill them surely." Nervously, she shook her head. "They aren't men skilled with weapons."

"Does it matter when they victimize you so cruelly?"

"I wouldn't wish their blood on my hands." The whole world knew of his expertise.

He didn't answer for a moment. "As you wish."

"Isabella wishes to discourage their avarice in a less fatal way," Mrs. Crocker interposed. "With your cooperation."

"At your service, mademoiselle." His voice was soft, low, oddly touched with compassion. Quickly setting his glass down, he slid up from his lounging pose, impatient with such sentiment.

"This is extremely awkward." Isabella twisted the stem of the goblet in her fingers and would have looked completely artless save for her voluptuous breasts about to burst from her low décolletage.

Awkward indeed, he thought, not sure he was capable of taking what she was offering with such guileless naivete. Equally sure he couldn't long resist her bounteous pulchritude. "Please," he gently said. "I believe I know what you're about to say, and there's no need. I willing accede to your wishes, whatever they may be. You decide what and where and let me know."

She looked up from the goblet in her hands and exhaled in relief. "You're most kind, sir."

"I'm most fortunate, Miss Leslie," he replied softly.

"Perhaps in a fortnight, Dermott," Molly submitted.

Isabella blushed while the earl wondered how he could last that long. But infinitely polite, he gracefully bowed his head. "I await your pleasure, ladies."

Dermott left Molly's shortly after, and waving his driver off, walked away at a pace that indicated his deep frustration. He passed through Green Park, continuing through Hyde Park to Kensington Gardens, completely immune to his surroundings, the uncommon degree of lust Miss Leslie evoked not only torturous but disturbing, his thoughts in tumult. A considerable time later, he found himself on the banks of the Thames, the sun setting over the river in a spectacularly brilliant crimson, and startled, he looked around as though waking from a dream.

Understanding a degree of sanity and good judgment was called for, he found a hackney cab, gave directions for his London house, and studiously avoided thinking of the blond jezebel in the black lace gown. Intent on supplanting images of the delectable Miss Leslie with more available females, he arrived home, quickly bathed and dressed, and set out for an evening at Carlton House, where the Prince of Wales's set could always be counted on for unbridled revelry.

Dinner was informal, with the usual male coterie of the Prince's engaged in outdrinking each other. Mrs. Fitzherbert was in Brighton, so the few women present were of questionable social status, a fact Dermott welcomed in his present churlish state. [2] As the evening progressed, the guests moved into the music room, where they were joined by ladies who were there to entertain them with their musical abilities along with other more titillating delights. And by midnight a general state of inebriated carouse was well under way. While the Prince of Wales swore his devotion to Mrs. Fitzherbert, he was easily dissuaded from the path of faithfulness if she was absent, and tonight a dancer from the corps de ballet was piquing his interest. She not only danced but sang extremely well, charming the Prince, who delighted in music of all kinds and singing in particular.

The party had just finished a rousing second chorus of a drinking song when the Prince cast a glance at Dermott, who alone was without female company, and cheerfully called out, "No cunt tonight, Dermott? Should I send for the doctor?"

"I'm on a rest cure."

"Venus's revenge got you?"

Dermott shook his head as he lay sprawled on a silk-covered chaise with peculiar crocodile feet. "I've found religion," he drawled, his voice rich with liquor.

"Oh, ho! And maybe I've a notion to take back my wife," the Prince hooted. [3] "Although it might be a tad crowded in bed with all her lovers."

A roar of drunken laughter greeted his statement.

"Ain't like you, Bathurst, that's all." Beau Brummell spoke into the lessening guffaws and chuckles in the same fastidious tone with which he dressed, his cool-eyed gaze keen despite a night of drinking. [4]

"But then, variety is the spice of life," Dermott murmured, his dark eyes clear and challenging. "Any argument there?"

"Acquit me, Bathurst," Brummell casually disclaimed. "You know how I dislike intense physical activity early in the morning, not to mention the risk of bloodying my linen."

The sudden silence that had fallen at Dermott's quiet query evaporated in a communal sigh of relief.

"There, there," the Prince interjected. "What we all need is another bottle." Snapping his fingers brought a number of footmen on the run, and the noisy carouse resumed.

But everyone took note of Dermott's departure shortly after, although no one dared question his motive when he rose from his chaise and exited the room.

"He's blue-deviled," the Marquis of Jervis remarked as the door closed on the earl's back.

"Must be a woman."

"Not with Bathurst. He don't care for any of 'em enough."

"Did he losh a race today?"

"No races today, Wiggy," a young baronet interjected. "You're too drunk to remember."

"Naw drunk," the Duke of Marshfield's heir slurred.

"Maybe he's bored," Brummell noted, his sobriety conspicuous in the sea of drunkenness.

"Never saw Bathurst bored with cunt before."

A general nodding of heads greeted the remark.

"A pony says he's hors de combat." A young man winked.

"Never happened before. I'll raise you a pony against it."

The state of Dermott's health continued in heated debate until the betting included most everyone in the room, for or against, a coin toss deciding who would talk to his doctor in the morning. No one considered asking Bathurst personally.

Not in his current ill temper.

When the earl found himself at Molly's several hours later, wet from the rain falling outside and more sober than he would have liked, Kate was waiting. She welcomed him with a smile despite the late hour, and he followed her to bed, trying not to let his moodiness show. He performed well because he always did and because he didn't wish her to suffer for his own black humor, and once he'd pleasured her and found his own relief, he fell asleep like a man dead to the world.

She wasn't without insight, and she sat up afterward and watched him in the candlelight, wondering what demons were driving him. She knew of the death of his wife and son; was tonight some anniversary? But it had happened years before, and even Molly said he was over it as much as anyone can ever be over such a devastating loss. With female intuition she wondered whether the young lady taking up residence in Molly's quarters might more likely figure in his moodiness. Call it a hunch or a bit of gossip revealed by one of the maids, but if she were a betting woman, she'd say Dermott's newest fancy was contributing to his ill humor. And if she were anything but a sensible young woman who understood earls didn't marry courtesans, she might allow herself to mourn the imminent loss of his company.

But she was eminently pragmatic; she was also very near her financial goals, thanks to Dermott's generosity, and soon she would put period to her life here and return to her young daughter in the country with enough money to live the life of a genteel widow.

Dermott was dear to her. She lightly stroked the gleaming black of his hair spread on the pillow and leaned over to gently kiss his cheek.

He woke at her touch, gathered her in his arms, mumbled something affectionate, and fell back to sleep.

She would miss him, she thought, lying in his warm embrace. He was the kindest of men.