Harlequin Historical February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Major's Wife\To Tempt a Viking\Mistress Masquerade (54 page)

‘I know,' he whispered into her hair. ‘I know. It's all right. It goes against the grain to put yourself in my hands, doesn't it? Hush, don't try to deny it, my beauty. I know how it is with you, but whatever your reasons, I shall keep my side of the bargain. I shall not be unreasonable, or unfaithful, or anything less than careful. And I shall dress for dinner every evening.'

She inhaled the fresh scent of his skin. ‘I told you my reasons,' she said.

‘Some of them, yes. But when a woman like you offers herself to a man she's been trying to get rid of since they first met, he would have to be a serious ninnyhammer not to suspect some ulterior motive, wouldn't he? And my reputation is not for being queer in my attic.'

‘No, I know that. I'm sorry. It's too complicated. Too many issues.'

‘Hardly surprising. A lot has happened to you, so I believe. Well, we may not see eye to eye on everything, but however much you disapprove of me, there is at least one area where our tastes combine. Which you have obviously appreciated, or you'd not have suggested a liaison with me. Not in a million years. Would you, my beauty?'

‘No, I suppose not,' she whispered.

His kiss was soft and undemanding, more like a reward for everything she had offered him and for what he'd won from her. Neither of them could have failed to see the direction of their shared interest, nor did they see any reason to pretend otherwise when there were so many attendant advantages. But Annemarie had already begun to notice that the revenge at the backbone of her scheme tended to weaken at times of physical contact with this amazing man. That problem would have to be addressed, or disaster would strike again, for he had implied a certain impermanence when he'd said ‘...even if our agreement lasts no longer than this Season'. He could not have made it plainer if he'd said ‘even if it lasts no longer than it takes to get hold of those letters'. Withdrawing herself from his arms, she wondered which of them was the deceiver and which the deceived.

‘Your breakfast will be quite cold, my lord.'

‘Nothing to worry about,' he said, helping her back into her chair. ‘Only a few months ago I was glad to get any breakfast at all. You should eat a little more than a slice of toast, too, although we can stop for a bite along the way. Are you in a hurry to get back?'

‘Not any more. In such a comfortable carriage, I shall enjoy the rest of the journey.'

‘Glad to hear it. But we have a lot to discuss, and I don't want to give you time to change your mind.'

‘I shall not change my mind, except about telling Father I'm in town. He'll have to be told now, won't he?'

* * *

By the time she returned to her room after breakfast, Annemarie's butterflies were doing a different kind of dance that reached her legs and made her sit rather suddenly on the bed to think it through. Rarely had she made such an impulsive decision of that magnitude, the enormity of which astounded even her. Did she share this trait with her mama? Had impulsiveness led Lady Benistone into a situation from which she could not extricate herself? Would it do the same to her? Would she regret this to the end of her days? Was her bitterness still such a potent force that she would enjoy the eventual humiliation of a man who was doing no more than his royal employer's bidding? Was that really what it was all about, or was she being influenced by other factors, too? The idea of living in her own London house and being seen on the arm of this particular nobleman would signal that the earlier scandal attached to Sir Richard Golding's widow was hardly worth a mention and that the next tasty bit of gossip would cause envy rather than pity. She could expect some resistance from her loved ones, but that would have to be overcome. Had they not tried to persuade her for months to restart her life?

* * *

‘Yes, but not
this
way, surely?' said Cecily later that same day.

‘His
mistress
?' said Oriel, trying to keep the horror of it from showing. ‘Did you have to go that far? Couldn't you just...well...be
friends
?'

Dear Oriel. So conventional. Foes would have been a more appropriate word.
‘No, love,' Annemarie said, preparing for a sustained argument. ‘Why do you think I preferred to stay here in Park Lane rather than home? I couldn't possibly have invited Lord Verne there as a friend of
mine
, knowing that Father would catch him by the lapels and drag him off to see his latest things. I wouldn't get a look in, would I? A place of my own is what I need. Lord Verne understands that.'

He was, she had discovered, a very understanding kind of man. She had hardly needed to explain how desperate was her desire to separate herself from the set-up at Montague Street that had such bad memories for her. Thinking back on their conversation over lunch while the horses were being rested, he himself had been the one to enumerate what she would require by the way of servants: a cook, a butler and a housekeeper as well as the usual underlings. It would need rooms large enough for her to entertain, he said, to have friends to stay, and empty enough at the start for her to make choices about furnishings which they would have the pleasure of finding together. She would be able to polish her driving skills in town and the nearby Hyde Park, and she would be his companion at functions he was expected to attend. That, it seemed, was to be a part of the deal and Annemarie saw no reason to object since it would serve her purpose too. Quite willingly, she also agreed to accompany him on his art-collecting trips and to Brighton, too, and to entertain those collectors from whom he wished to purchase. As the daughter of Lord Benistone, one of the British Museum's greatest benefactors, she would be an asset, he told her.

The discussion of allowances for housekeeping and personal expenditure had been postponed, but since the financial aspect of the arrangement was not of prime importance to her, she was content not to press for details. There was, after all, a limit to her new-found ill intentions that she preferred not to explore until later.

‘I'm glad to hear it,' Cecily said. ‘It was just as well he came to visit, isn't it?'

Annemarie was relieved to think that Cecily was more perplexed than scandalised, though in fact Cecily was taken aback more by the phenomenal speed than by the contract itself. Had Annemarie considered how this would affect Oriel's situation? she wanted to know.

Before Annemarie could answer, Oriel spoke up in her sister's defence. ‘Oh, no, Cecily. That's unfair. Of course she's thought about it, but one cannot always be using excuses of that kind to remain stuck for ever in a situation. I'm glad Annemarie has accepted Lord Verne's offer. It may be rather sudden, but it couldn't have come at a better time, and it won't affect William and me in the slightest, not until he leaves the army, and he says that might not be for another year. I cannot wait to meet the brave man who's managed to prise Annemarie out of her shell. I'm sure I shall like him, if she likes him well enough to agree to be his mistress.'

‘Thank you, dearest,' said Annemarie, noting the mistaken change of roles. ‘I hoped you'd understand.' She did not dare correct Oriel's assumption that it was Verne himself who had suggested it.

‘I understand, too,' said Cecily. ‘Of course I do. Wouldn't anyone prefer to live in their own place with a lover, rather than...tch! Oh dear! How clumsy of me.'

‘It's all right,' said Annemarie, taking Cecily in her arms and soothing the
faux pas
with a stroking hand over the gaily striped satin shoulder. ‘Say no more. This sounds a bit like history repeating itself, doesn't it? But it's not. There's more to it than meets the eye.'

‘Oh?' they said, in unison. ‘More to it? Tell.'

What a fool to let secrets slip. That's what sympathy does.

As upright as penguins, they sat down again on the pale-grey brocade sofa, smoothing their knees in anticipation of whatever it was they ought to be knowing.

What did it matter? They won't approve, but I cannot keep this to myself for ever.
‘I don't want Marguerite to know,' she said. ‘Or Father.'

‘About you being Lord Verne's mistress? How...?'

‘I don't mean that. They'll have to know about
that
. I mean...this.' She pushed forwards the battered portmanteau that had stood beside her chair, half-hidden under the padded arm and the claw foot as if it had no business to be in such a tastefully furnished room.

‘I wondered why you insisted on bringing that in here,' said Cecily. ‘What does it have to do with...the other thing?' She glanced at it, accusingly.

So, starting with the purchase of the bureau, the alarming visit of Lord Verne and his intentions, and then the discovery of the letters in Brighton, Annemarie told them as much as she thought they needed to know because by that time it had become clear that, without the assistance of someone trustworthy, getting rid of them was going to be fraught with too many complications. Lord Verne had made it clear, in the nicest possible way, that he meant to spend quite a lot of his time in her company. Her margin of opportunity was already shrinking.

The portmanteau quickly became an object of fascination. ‘In
there
?' said Cecily. ‘So that's why you can't let go of it. Good gracious, Annemarie, that's
dynamite
. What are you going to do with them? Give them back? Is that why you've rushed back to London?'

Courteously, they listened to her options that stopped well short of the less-than-creditable scheme that would end it all, which she knew would find no favour in their eyes and might indeed antagonise them enough to refuse their help. With only a few unrealistic alternatives to offer, both Cecily and Oriel agreed that the letters should be returned, as quickly and as secretly as possible, to Lady Hamilton to whom they rightly belonged, fully understanding that to keep Lord Verne guessing would add to the fun, until she felt like telling him. Besides, they said, it would do no harm at all to frighten his Royal Highness to death—no, not literally—over something as potentially calamitous as a batch of intimate letters to a forlorn woman on whose friendship he had preyed. Could they read one? Just one?

Annemarie frowned at this. ‘No, dear,' she said. ‘They're private and very personal. We must not pry.'

‘Didn't
you
?' Cecily wheedled.

‘Only a few, just to see if they were all the same. They're utterly ridiculous, from a man of his supposed intelligence.'

‘I'll take them to her for you,' Cecily said. ‘I know where she is.'

‘You do? I intended to ask Mr Parke at Christie's, where I bought the bureau.'

‘No need. She's been living under the Rule of the King's Bench, on and off, for over a year now.'

‘Debtors' prison?' said Oriel. ‘Oh, the poor woman.'

‘With her daughter Horatia. I doubt she'll ever be freed.' Cecily's matter-of-fact tone grated harshly on Annemarie's tender heart. A forsaken woman and her twelve-year-old child confined to a debtors' prison, losing not only her lover and her friends, but all hope, too, while she herself was debating the neatest way to feather her own comfortable nest, to nurse her temporary hurts, to settle old scores upon a man who was not even remotely involved except that she distrusted his motives, as she would have distrusted any man's.

‘
Would
you?' said Annemarie. ‘Would you really go to a place like that?'

‘Number Twelve Temple Place. I can get in there. Others do. Of course I'll go.'

‘Thank you, Cecily. Remind me to give you the key before you go.'

‘Give it to me now, dear, then you can go up and change. You must be tired. I'm so glad you came here. When does your house-hunting begin?'

Delving into the depths of her velvet reticule, Annemarie found the tiny key and handed it to Cecily. ‘Tomorrow. It was kind of you, dear one, to let me stay. I shall now have time to go shopping for clothes. I left most of my things behind in Brighton.'

‘I'll go with you,' said Oriel, heading for the door. ‘You know there's nothing I like more than that. After breakfast?'

‘Yes. But what about Marguerite? Is she at home?'

‘Staying at the Sindleshams. They're taking her to see the firework display in the Park. Come and have dinner with Father and William and me. It'll be a good opportunity to tell him what's happening without little sister to stir things up. We'll expect you both for seven, shall we?'

‘We'll come,' said Annemarie, embracing her.

But when Oriel had taken her leave, the perceptive Cecily appeared to need clarification on a few more points. With a hand on her waist, she propelled Annemarie towards the abandoned portmanteau, poking at it with the point of her toe. ‘So Lord Verne thinks these are still in your bureau, does he?' she said.

‘I.... Why do you ask?'

‘Because, you little goose, any woman who insists on carrying her own luggage, as you did, from a carriage like that one is telling the world that no one else can be trusted with it. If he's not worked it out for himself, he's not the man I took him for.'

‘I told him I had valuables to take to Christie's.'

‘Yes, dear. He deals with valuables most days of the week, I expect. Did you know he's Simonstoke's eldest son? There's more wealth in that family than in the Prince Regent's. Property scattered everywhere.'

‘Cecily, you may be right about him thinking I must have discovered them. That's why I want them off my hands as soon as possible and I want you to take her some money, too. I cannot bear to think of her being penniless in a place like that. She deserves better. Although, of course, she took another woman's husband, didn't she?'

With a flicker of her eyebrows, Cecily agreed. ‘And you still intend, do you, even after they're back where they belong, to let Verne believe
you
have them? Is that
really
just to keep his Royal Highness from sleeping at night, or is there more to
that
, too, than meets the eye?'