His Mistress by Morning (4 page)

Her fingers went up to touch the glorious creation atop her head. Why, she’d never worn such a hat in her life, and she felt almost queenly beneath such fashionable perfection.

All the while, Finella kept up her tirade. “And where was Aurora when we had thin cupboards and were freezing our arses off every winter, I ask? Where was she? Up in that fancy Mayfair palace of hers, warm and snug, drinking pekoe and happily ignoring us.”

Charlotte scrambled to catalogue all this information. But one point stood out.

Her mother lived in a palace?

“I don’t understand,” she said, then corrected herself in hopes of gaining more information. “I mean to say, I’ve never understood why she should ignore us.”

Other than the fact that Charlotte was now apparently something of a scandal.

Finella snorted again. “The high and mighty Countess Pilsley calling on us? On Little Titchfield Street? Now that would be a lark. Oh, she’ll help herself to your fortune but deign to acknowledge you?” The lady’s brows rose in a significant arch. “No, it’s better that she left us to our fate and married Pilsley after Wilmont died. At least
we
aren’t up to our ears in debt.”

Charlotte did her best to take this all in and not appear completely shocked. Her mother had left her to Cousin Finella and remarried?

Not just remarried, but having landed an earl? That was quite a step up from Charlotte’s father, who had been naught but a poor knight with barely a noteworthy estate.

“I thought Pilsley had money,” she said aloud without thinking.

“Harrumph! Not enough to cover her gambling debts,” Finella shot back, her dour looks replaced quickly with a wide smile as she rose up in her seat to wave gaily at a lady in the street.

Looking over at the fancily dressed recipient of her cousin’s enthusiastic greeting, Charlotte nearly toppled out of the open carriage—for it was none other than Corrina Fornett, fluttering her elegantly gloved hand back at them as if they were old and dear friends.

Mrs. Fornett? The same woman Finella had regarded just yesterday with such animosity it was surprising she hadn’t fired off a letter to the
Times
in complaint of the notorious lady being allowed to drive in Mayfair?

“Oh, yes, doesn’t Corinna look well today. I daresay if she wasn’t such a lovely girl, I’d despise her utterly.” Finella flounced back down in her seat, pulling at her gloves. “Now, where was I?”

“Lady Pilsley,” Charlotte said absently, her gaze still fixed on the departing Incognita. She was so overcome with shock that she barely listened to Finella’s continued rail against the former Lady Wilmont.

“Oh, yes! If Aurora weren’t so affable, why I daresay they’d both be ruined, but that cousin of mine has always had charm enough for ten women. Still, I shudder to think what Pilsley would do if he ever discovered just how much his beloved wife owes from her whist and dicing.”

“Dicing? Unbelievable,” Charlotte muttered. First, it
was nearly impossible to imagine her mother being described as “affable,” but gambling?

“You’re a fine one to chastise someone about a few games of chance!” Finella crossed her arms over her chest. “Especially after last night.”

Whatever had she done last night? Given the set of her cousin’s jaw she had to imagine she wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.

“Lottie, you drink too much and you play too deep.” Finella’s finger wagged up and down with the precision of one of those newfangled metronomes. “You are going to gain a terrible reputation.”

A terrible reputation? As far as Charlotte could see, given the liberties Lord Trent had taken this morning, her reputation was the least of her worries. Still, she needed to make some amends with her cousin. “I’ll sincerely do my best to improve.”

The lady looked anything but impressed. “Bah! Play the contrite Mayfair miss on someone who doesn’t know you better.” Finella tugged at her poor gloves again. “Really, Lottie, you can’t let yourself go. Not now. Not when just a few more annuities would allow you to retire. And to get those, you cannot let yourself overindulge—”

That admonition, Charlotte mused, at least sounded like the Finella she knew.

“—especially since Mr. Ludlow was quite clear on the point last month. But why do I think you will listen to your solicitor when you won’t even listen to your own dear Finny? A house, Lottie. You need to find someone capable of bringing another house into the arrangement. If not a decent property, then shipping stocks, perhaps. I recall a Mrs. Wallace who did quite well with shares in a
ship. But first of all, you need to find the protection of a man with the means to provide those accommodations.” Finella’s lips drew into a thin, firm line of disapproval. “Not that you’ll see any such carte blanche from
him
.” This, apparently, wasn’t a new lecture. “That impoverished, impertinent, wretched bounder will—”

“You mean Lord Trent?”

“Of course I mean him,” Finella said, all but exasperated. “That man will be your ruin!”

“I think he already has been,” Charlotte muttered under her breath, recalling the rebellious way her hips had thrust upward as he’d covered her with his naked body, the way her thighs had parted eagerly at his touch.

“Now Rockhurst, there is the sort a woman can depend on.” Finella sighed dreamily. “Why, if I’d had a few like him, I certainly wouldn’t be here.”

Charlotte’s gaze flew up. Cousin Finella had…with…If Charlotte hadn’t been seated, she would have collapsed for certain. Not only was Cousin Finella saying she’d…well, had been…but she was saying all this as if it were normal that she, Miss Finella Uppington-Higgins, respectable spinster and upholder of propriety, was a former Cyprian.

But some things hadn’t changed, and Finella returned to form, all business and straightforward as ever. “Send Trent packing, my girl. You cannot afford to keep him much longer.”

“But he loves me,” Charlotte said, thinking of her wish.

“Loves you! As if that pays the grocer’s bill.” Finella moved across the carriage and settled down next to her. “You aren’t getting any younger, and the Rockhursts of
the world will start looking elsewhere before you know it. Why, I hear he was most generous with Mrs. Vache when they parted company last winter.” The bright flame of avarice illuminating Finella’s gaze could have lit every lamp in Mayfair.

The carriage wheeled around a corner and Finella straightened, her face rising to look ahead. “Dear heavens! We’re almost there.” She turned around and examined her companion like one might a prize racehorse. Putting her hands on Charlotte’s cheeks, she pinched them a few times, then smiled. “You look perfectly lovely this morning, and there is a fine crowd gathered to give you an excellent mention in the
Morning Post
. Now smile like I taught you and make every single one of those fools wish they had diamonds enough to make you theirs.”

Crowds?
The Morning Post
? Whatever was Finella nattering on about?

Just then the carriage came to a stop before an average-looking house, but that was the only thing normal about the place—for gathered there before the plain brick residence was a large group of men.

Why, it was as if they’d emptied the entire membership of White’s and Brooks’ and Boodle’s and dumped them on this very spot.

A throng of dandies and Corinthians and dashers jostled each other to be front and center to the door of her carriage.

Finella nudged her from behind. “Smile, Lottie. For gad’s sakes, smile at them.”

Doing her best to turn her lips up and not turn and order the driver to hurry away with all due haste from this mayhem, she got up on shaky legs.

Immediately the door to the carriage was flung open and a volley of “huzzahs” arose from the crowd.

Charlotte thought she was going to faint, but with Finella pressing her from behind and a gentleman’s hand now holding hers and pulling her forward, there was nothing she could do but go along with this farce.

The handsome man who’d claimed her hand was none other than the Earl of Rockhurst—the man Finella had been urging her to consider for her next…

“Green, gentlemen! Just as I wagered. The lady is wearing green,” he announced. “Pay up!”

They were betting on the color of her gown?

Another stepped forward. Boxley, she thought his name was. The new Earl Boxley. “Rockhurst, how the devil do you always know what she is going to be wearing? What are you doing? Slipping in behind Trent?” He stepped forward and took Finella’s hand, kissing it and giving the saucy lady a broad wink.

Male laughter, rough and hearty, filled the street. Charlotte didn’t know whether to be shocked that the entire
ton,
at least the male half, seemed to know about…well, were aware that…well, of the fact that she and Lord Trent were…

Oh, she couldn’t even think it without blushing furiously.

Lovers
.

But now to add to that, here was this fellow insinuating that Lord Trent wasn’t the only man who took such liberties with her!

“Demmit,” one of them cursed as he paid off his companion. “I thought she’d be wearing yellow this morning.”

“Perhaps her garters are yellow,” came the suggestion of someone in the back of the crowd.

This brought out a hearty laugh, and Charlotte felt the heat of a blush fall from her cheeks right down to her very
green
garters.

“I’ll take that wager,” said Lord Boxley. “Fifty pounds says her garters are yellow.”

“You’ve got a bet, Boxley,” countered Lord Fitzhugh, who had jockeyed his way to the front of the crowd. The man grinned at her. “Come on, Lottie, be a dear girl, and let us see your garters.”

“M-m-m-y-y garters?” Charlotte managed to sputter, now bent on reversing her course and heading back to the questionable safety of her carriage. The color of her gown was one thing, but her garters? Heavens above, what sort of lady did they think she was?

Given the lively betting and expectant looks on their faces, obviously the sort who would accommodate them by lifting her hemline.

She didn’t imagine they would take her word for the matter.

“The garters, Lottie!” came the shouts. “Show us your garters!”

Finella nudged her in the back with her elbow. “Oh, dear heavens, gel, show them your garters.”

“I say not!” Charlotte protested. Quince could make all the changes she wanted to her life, but her wish had never included lifting her skirt on a public street.

She shot them all a haughty glare and huffed her way up toward the steps.

It didn’t help when she heard Finella explaining behind her, “She had too much to drink last night,” in a whisper that could have been heard in Brighton. Charlotte turned
around to protest this as well, only to find the saucy woman winking at the lot of them. “Any wagers on the color of my garters, gentlemen?” She swished her skirts back and forth, giving them a good view of her ankles.

The crowd roared with laughter, and to Charlotte’s horror wagers started flying. She doubled back, caught Finella by the elbow, and towed her up the steps, the laughter, wagers, and jests following like a pack of hungry, baying hounds at their heels.

“Now that was a fine way to treat the lot of them,”

Finella scolded as she tugged her arm free and cast a look of flirtatious longing back at the crowd on the street. She even had the audacity to blow a kiss at Boxley.

Gads, the cheeky earl must be twenty years Finella’s junior!

But before anything more could be said, the door opened to reveal a short, thin man. A pair of spectacles sat perched on his nose and his bald head glistened in the sunlight streaming through the transom above the door.

Arbuckle
. It had to be, given his rough-hewn hands and the blotches of paint on his rumpled shirt.

“Mrs. Townsend,” he enthused. “You did come! I feared you wouldn’t make it today. Such rumors about you of late.”

Charlotte flinched. Seeing the name on an envelope was one thing, but being addressed so…well, it was a bit disconcerting. She really needed to discover what had happened to Mr. Townsend, and as quickly as possible.

That, and the answers to a thousand and one other questions about how it was that no one seemed to realize that she wasn’t this infamous creature. Not even Arbuckle seemed to notice, for he’d taken her arm and pulled her into his house like a protective uncle. He
handed her pelisse to the housekeeper and then led her to the stairs.

“Radiant! You are radiant this morning. Green is the perfect color for you. Delightful! Wonderful!” He waved his hand as if it held a brush, taking broad strokes and filling her ears with a monologue of praise. “The next time I paint you, I intend to do you in green. Not that you aren’t perfect the way you are in the other portraits, but the possibilities, my dear girl.”

“Diana at her morning adulations,” Finella offered.

“An excellent suggestion, Mrs. Birley!” the man said, his eyes sparkling with delight. “From Helen of Troy to Diana. It will be the centerpiece of my exhibition next fall.”

Charlotte’s head spun. Mrs. Birley? When had Finella gained a new name as well?

Meanwhile, as Finella and Arbuckle began to haggle over her services as the model for this next composition, Charlotte did her best not to gape at the art dotting the walls.

Engravings, drawings, sketches, and watercolors.

Of people, of horses, of vistas lush and green.

She stopped before one of them, a small painting of a meandering stream, with a soft green meadow spreading out from its verdant banks. There, beneath a tree, sat a woman, her skirt ruffled by an unseen breeze, which also pulled at her bonnet strings. The painting wasn’t finished, but that hadn’t stopped Arbuckle from hanging it.

There was something so wistful, so sad about the scene that Charlotte sighed.

“Don’t even try,” Arbuckle told her.

“Pardon me?”

“Don’t even offer for that again,” he told her. “I tell you
every time that it isn’t for sale, and every time you come here you try to induce me to sell it. No matter how you toss those lashes or force tears from those priceless eyes of yours, I’ll stop painting before I let you hang my Emma inside that scandalous boudoir of yours.” He waggled a finger at her. “I’m not like that gaggle of fools outside. I’m immune to your charms, Lottie Townsend. Have been since the first time I painted you fifteen years ago.”