His Mistress by Morning (7 page)

“Lottie Townsend!” he said, giving her a warning jostle. “You are many things, but I’ve never known you to disavow a wager. Now put that handkerchief back up where it belongs and admit that I’ve won fair and square.” His emerald eyes glittered again. “If you haven’t the money, the usual fashion will suffice.”

The usual fashion? Heavens, what did that mean? Charlotte’s imagination barely had time to consider the implications of his words when she realized the house they’d entered in no way, shape, or form resembled the Marlowe house she loved. She gaped at her surroundings as if she’d just tumbled into a foreign court.

“Where is everything?” she said aloud without even thinking.

Sebastian paused at the door to the salon. “Whatever do you mean?”

Charlotte faltered, for she didn’t know where to begin. “Your father’s collections?”

“My father?” He snorted. “The only thing he’s ever collected are gambling debts.”

Fenwick colored. Whether it was in agreement or censure for having something untoward being said about the master of the house, she couldn’t tell.

“You mean to say he’s here? In London?” Charlotte had never met the infamous Lord Walbrook, for he’d been gone long before she’d become friends with Hermione and her family.

“No, thank God,” Sebastian said. “Off shooting or some cross-country hunt, something of that nature.”

“Fishing,” Fenwick supplied.

“Yes, that’s it,” Sebastian said. “Trout fishing he claims, but he’ll come home dirty and with a monthlong hangover most likely.”

“But what about his studies?” she persisted, looking to where the Oriental cabinet and the earl’s infamous statue should be; instead there stood a rather ordinary sideboard with a plain salver atop it.

“His wha-a-at?” Sebastian stammered.

“His studies. His theories on early cultures and aboriginal—” She paused and glanced around, searching for the wonderful oddities the earl had sent home: the South Seas war mask, the pair of grand Indian vases, the silken painting with the intriguing Chinese characters.

In fact, all the things that had made the Marlowe house such an interesting place were gone. Instead her surroundings were just as ostentatious (and ordinary) as every other house in Mayfair. And it seemed the Earl of Walbrook was just as changed.

“What have I done?” she whispered under her breath. Suddenly she was plagued with questions, and she would have asked them if she hadn’t found Fenwick and
Sebastian staring at her, the very weight of their astonishment weighing down at her. Why, she could almost hear the questions that lay in their eyes.

Whatever are you talking about?

Oh, heavens, far more had changed in the Marlowe house than just Hermione’s plain dress and Sebastian’s rakish new spirit.

“I meant to say, I thought with your father’s travels there would be—” She stopped midsentence, realizing by the puzzled looks they shared that they hadn’t the vaguest notion what she was talking about. Panicked, she glanced back to where the fertility statue had made this entryway the scandal of the
ton
.

“My father’s travels?” Sebastian shook his head. “I hardly consider his shooting trips to Scotland worthy of note.” He gazed at the cabinet and salver, then looked back at her. “Whatever are you looking for, Lottie?”

Charlotte took a quick, deep breath, shaking off the alarm welling up in her chest. It was all gone.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “I thought I…that is, well, ’tis nothing, my lord.”

“I daresay a surgeon needs to be summoned. You look positively pale.” Sebastian turned to the butler. “Send for Mr. Campbell immediately. And keep that handkerchief on your head, Lottie. Unless you want to ruin that gown with blood.”

“A surgeon? Are you positive, my lord?” Fenwick made a low noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t know if that is advisable.”

“It’s just a bump,” Charlotte added. “If you would put me down and let me find my feet again—”

Fenwick dove to add his hasty agreement. “Madame is probably correct. A little rest, a quick restorative, and
then she can be—” The man’s lips pressed together, and she had to imagine how he would have liked to end that protest with—
on her way before I am sacked
.

Sebastian looked quite put out with both of them. “Then have a footman bring a basin of hot water, some cloths, and a brush, as well as a decanter of brandy, up here. The good stuff, mind you.”

“Yes, milord,” Fenwick replied, his brows furrowed. “I think it would be best if you both retired to the breakfast room.”

In other words, Charlotte surmised as Sebastian carried her down the hall, as far out of sight as possible.

The breakfast room, like the rest of the house, had also undergone a transformation. Sensible paintings hung on the walls, chintz draperies and subtle colors were now the order of the day.

Charlotte never thought she’d miss Lady Walbrook’s Greek statue of Artemis and Actaeon, wolves and all.

Sebastian settled her down on a large chair in the corner and strode around the table to fetch a glass from the sideboard.

“Hey, ho, Sebastian,” called out a male voice. The door on the opposite side swung open and the viscount’s younger brother, Griffin, came barreling in. “Loan me a monkey, will you? And before you say no, I promise this time—” His words fell to a stop as he let out a low whistle, his gaze fixed upon Charlotte. “Lawks!” was all he could manage, before he glanced at his brother. “Tell me which it is: Mother is either out for the afternoon or she’s gone aloft.”

“Grif—” the viscount said in a low growl. “Have a care with what you say.”

This slighter version of the Marlowe heir caught his older brother’s arm and pulled him aside. “What the devil
are you thinking? Mother will have your hide—and now that I think about it, mine as well—if she finds out about your…your…guest.” He spared another glance at Charlotte and smiled almost apologetically.

Well, at least here was something that was familiar. For Griffin hasn’t changed a whit in this upside down world, Charlotte thought. He was as cheeky as ever.

“Mrs. Townsend had a mishap,” Sebastian told him. “I simply brought her here to recover.”

“Trampled by your admiring hordes,” Griffin jested in her direction.

“No,” Sebastian said, filling two glasses from a decanter he’d purloined from the back of the sideboard. “Lyman.”

His brother’s wry grin turned to a thin line immediately. “What did that bastard do?” Griffin paused to glance at Charlotte and take in her rumpled state. “Someone ought to thrash him.”

“Lord Trent did,” Charlotte told him. “In the middle of the square.”

Griffin’s mouth dropped open. “You thrashed Lyman? Out there? In front of…everyone?”

Sebastian tossed back a drink and nodded.

His brother groaned. “That settles it. I’m staying at Sir Joshua’s for the next few days. Won’t be a quiet moment around here once the old girl hears this.” Griffin started from the room as quickly as he entered. “I’d suggest telling her you were top-heavy and didn’t know better.” He shook his head. “Never mind that one. Didn’t work last week when I had that little accident. Oh, about that money, can you spare it?”

“What is it for this time?” Sebastian asked. “The alchemy experiments or the elixir of life?”

Griffin snorted. “Old hands, those. No, I’ve discovered something new. Sir Joshua and I think we’ve found a way to trick time.”

Sebastian closed his eyes and groaned. “Dare I ask?”

Charlotte put her fingers to her lips. Griffin hadn’t changed a bit. He was still the same irrepressible fellow, chasing one crazy dream after another. Recently he’d begun to share work and theories with Sir Joshua Smith, an amateur scientist who lived next door.

“Oh bother, you’d never understand,” Griffin told him. “Can you spot me the monkey or not?”

“Not,” Sebastian told him.

Griffin’s face fell. “Didn’t think so. Hadn’t any better luck with the old girl. Told me I was around the bend if I thought I could build a machine to travel through time.”

“A what?” Charlotte sputtered.

Griffin turned to her, eager for an appreciative, or at least trapped, audience. “A time machine. Like a carriage, but instead of driving from London to Bath, instead you travel to, say another century or so, like 2010.” He waggled his brows at her. “What about you, Mrs. Townsend? You wouldn’t want to spot me a few quid for a new book over at Hatchards on the possibilities of electricity, would you? Contribute to the betterment of mankind?”

She laughed, then shook her head. “I don’t believe I have anything to spare at the moment.” Why, she’d never possessed that amount of money in her life, and here was Griffin acting like it was pocket change.

He paused for a second, smiling hopefully, as if he thought one of them would have a change of heart. When it appeared he wasn’t going to get his boon, he bowed slightly, then started out the door, muttering to himself.
“Make us all rich once I determine how to use the relative speed of—”

Sebastian shook his head, then refilled his glass. Crossing the room, he handed one of the glasses to her and set the other down on the table behind him. Ever so slowly, he began to pull some of the pins free from her hair, looking over her carefully. “My apologies for my brother. He’s rather—”

“Delightful,” Charlotte said.

“Delightful? That’s debatable. He’s mad, is what he is. Like to put Mother in Bedlam with all his theories and experiments. Why, he blew up the garden wall night before last, taking Sir Joshua’s prized climbing rose with it.” Sebastian shook his head.

“He doesn’t mean any harm,” she said.

“You don’t know him,” Sebastian pointed out. “But he puts me in mind of something that I nearly forgot.” He turned from her, then glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “Don’t move.”

Then he was gone, out of the breakfast room in a flash. She could hear his boots pounding up the stairs and tromping around on the next floor. Before she knew it, he’d returned, with one hand behind his back and a foolish-looking grin fixed on his lips.

“Close your eyes,” he told her. She opened her mouth to say something, but he shook his head. “Close your eyes, Mrs. Townsend. That is an order.”

Not knowing what else to do, she did as he bid her and closed her eyes. She heard him come closer, smelled the subtle air of bay rum come closer.

“Open your eyes,” he whispered.

She did and found him holding out a small book for her.

“I hope you like it,” he was saying. “I had it commissioned for you. All the verses and poems you love in one volume.”

Charlotte took the offering, her mouth falling open. The first poem she came to, she stared at in wonder. “Coleridge? How did you know?” She loved Coleridge—though in secret and behind closed doors, for the man’s verses were quite, ahem, scandalous.

“How did I know?” he laughed. “I suppose all those nights of reading him to you might have been a slight hint. And there is some Blake, and a bit of Donne and Milton as well. Oh, and a few limericks in there in case Finny happens upon it.”

She turned the book over in her hands, staring at the red leather binding in wonder. He’d done this for her? Yet before she could say anything more, Fenwick came bustling inside, carrying a basin and supplies. Instinctively she tucked the slim volume into a pocket in her gown, hiding it from sight.

“Excellent!” Sebastian was saying to the man. He wrung out the cloth and began cleaning the side of her head, taking his task quite seriously. “This isn’t as grievous as I thought it was, so perhaps I was a bit hasty about the surgeon. Just a bit of a scrape and there will be a little bump. I should be able to patch you up myself,” he said to Charlotte. Once he had the area sponged, he opened up a pot of a pungent salve and dipped his fingers into it.

Her nose wrinkled. “That smells terrible,” she protested, stopping his hand.

“I’ll have you know this is Cook’s prized balm.” He freed his hand from her grasp and applied it to her head.

“When did you become so accomplished?” she asked, flinching slightly as his fingers touched a tender spot.

Sebastian pulled his hand back. “Does it hurt?”

“Not with you here,” she said.

Fenwick let out a disapproving snort.

Charlotte had forgotten he was still in the room, and Sebastian winked at her, a sort of “ignore him” gesture.

“When did you become such a fine surgeon?” she persisted, telling herself not to look at the Marlowes’ exasperated butler.

“Boxing at Eton. Had to have Cook express a crock of this down one semester because I kept getting floored by Rockhurst.”

“You box?”

He sat back on his heels. “Oh, that’s a fine one. I think that facer I landed on Lyman was quite admirable.” He dipped his fingers back into the jar.

“I didn’t know,” she said, biting her lip.

“Didn’t know!” He shook his head and continued applying the wretched balm. “Maybe you do need the surgeon. You’ve won more than your fair share of bets on my boxing and now you have the temerity to tease me. Ought to toss you into the streets for that one, Lottie Townsend.” Then he grinned at her. “But you can add that to my accounts for later.”

He boxed? And she wagered on the outcome? Quince was completely and utterly wrong. She’d never manage this farce.

“Ahem,” the butler said, coughing slightly to remind the pair of his purposeful presence.

Sebastian wiped his fingers on a cloth. “Finished, and, thankfully, I don’t think you’ll have much of a mark. Like I said, ’tis only a scrape, and your hair will hide most of it. If anything, Cook’s salve will keep your hordes of admirers away for a good week or so.”

Charlotte closed her mouth and considered pinching her nose shut as well. “That might make it worthwhile if there are any more like Lord Lyman,” she told him as she rose, a little shaky on her feet. With his help, she managed to get over to the mirror.

Other than the smelly unguent, she looked no worse for the experience. “I think I am quite restored,” she told him. “I have you to thank, my lord. How ever will I repay you?”

“Oh, we’ll get to that part later,” he said in that same smoky and scandalous voice he’d used this morning.