Mistress by Midnight (4 page)

He had hurt her once so deliberately, so finally, to prevent just what had occurred anyway. Life was full of ironies, but this woman would at last be his, no matter the price he had to pay.

C
on had driven her through the gray light himself, the only sounds the striking bells of church towers and clopping of horses’ hooves. And the pummeling of her own heart, which deafened her to anything else. He let her down from the conveyance with a savage hug, the key to her new house, and an envelope full of the most exacting instructions. Con was apparently not one to leave anything to chance anymore. No accidental meetings, no stolen kisses, and no clumsy coupling in fields and outbuildings.

She remembered the day that everything began to end, a beautiful sun-drenched day when thoughts of a new dress had blinded her to the tension at Ryland Grove.

She was off before Sadie could hook her last hook, her hair tumbling down her shoulders, her straw bonnet still hanging on the wall in the back hall. The sun was high in the sky. Con had promised a picnic lunch and she hoped he hadn’t started without her. Since he came down from university, he always seemed hungry. For food. For new experiences. But most of all for her.

Breathless, she found him pacing in the little folly. The basket on the bench had been opened. Laurette detected a few crumbs on Con’s cravat and brushed them away.

“Is there anything left for me?” she teased, licking her lips.

She knew her mouth drove him to distraction. Why, she couldn’t say. The Cobb girls had called her Fishface. Her lips were nothing like a dainty cupid’s bow, but a wide slice of pink that showed too many teeth when she laughed. They told her she’d get wrinkles, too, because she laughed quite a lot. She couldn’t help herself when she was with Con.

“I only have some bread and cheese. There wasn’t much Mrs. Clark could spare me.”

Con was not smiling. In fact, he looked horribly grim. Laurette squeezed his hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Uncle Ryland wants me to marry an heiress.”

Laurette dropped the peach. It bumped along the painted floor until it came to rest against a pillar.

Con turned to her and smiled. “Don’t worry. It’s nonsense and so I told him. You’ll be my marchioness as soon as I reach my majority. We’ll have a Christmas wedding, aye?”

Laurette looked at him. Looked closely. His eyes were shadowed and his dark hair hadn’t seen a brush lately. He’d shaved himself, had a nick on his cheek to prove it. His valet had found another employer who could pay him more regularly. “Is he hounding you again?” she whispered.

“He’s not beating me if that’s what you’re asking,” Con colored. “We’ve just been going over the books.”

“It’s his fault!” Laurette cried. “He’s had full reign over your finances for ages.”

Con put his arm around her and slid her across the bench. “I wish I could blame him. My grandfather, God rest his soul, was a most improvident man. You know how he loved travel and collecting odd things. Studying the world, he called it. It was he who bankrupted the estate. It’s been Uncle Ryland who’s kept us afloat, although he’s used some shady dealings to do it. No doubt he should have been born before his brother and I wouldn’t find myself in this sad pickle. I’d be plain Mr. Ryland, orphan, engaged to not-so-plain Miss Vincent, the most wondrous girl in Dorset.”

“Kiss me, Con.” She needed to be kissed and so did he. Then the worry would go out of his face. She could do that much for him at least. And how she wanted to do more.

He obliged. His lips were warm, his tongue firm. He tasted of peaches. No wonder he hadn’t wanted a bite, the rogue. Laurette opened her eyes to see Con’s fixed upon her, a hunted, haunted flatness within. She’d bring the spark back to them. Her hands left the breadth of his shoulders, as his tangled in her hair. He was hard for her already, as she was wet for him.

She broke the kiss. “I don’t want to wait anymore, Con.”

“You have to go while I can still let you.” He smoothed her cheek with a blunt fingertip. She caught it and thrust it into her mouth.

“Don’t, Laurie, for God’s sake. You’ll drive me mad.”

“Let’s be mad together,” she pleaded.

“You are too young.”

“I’m seventeen! Girls are mothers at my age!”

“Precisely.” Con stood up. “I have nothing to offer a wife now. What if I got you with child? How would we manage?”

“There are ways to prevent—”

Con raised a hand. “Don’t tell me how you know such things. We’ll go on as we have.”

But they had not, not for long. Laurette had won, only to lose him forever.

She checked her reticule. Con had given her money, but not enough for her to flee from him. He knew she was completely dependent, probably knew to the penny the extent of her own debts as well. Her role was artfully constructed, paragraph after paragraph in the papers he presented to her. She had not bothered to read every word of her contract, but signed the documents with resignation. Con oversaw the signing ceremony wearing a banyan-style dressing gown and a grave expression. He must have been sure of his success before she even rapped on his door at midnight, just as she had known she had no choice but to agree.

His terms had been remarkably generous, and she trusted him, fool that she was. She would burn her brother’s damages in six months’ time. It seemed Con was not quite so trusting of her to release her brother’s chits just yet. But Laurette felt sure she could persuade him before long. It seemed she was still his elixir of choice.

She slipped up the stairs to her brother’s rooms, hoping to avoid Charlie’s landlady. Her encounter with the woman yesterday was an unpleasant reminder just how dire things had become. The room was dim, the curtains drawn against the dawn. Laurette smelled Charlie before she saw him. He was still dressed and partially wrapped in a threadbare blanket on the broken divan, sleeping out here to give her the privacy of the single bedroom. No doubt he had lurched in so late, and so drunk, he had not even thought to tap on the door to inquire how she had spent her evening. But perhaps he’d make a fine clergyman eventually, aware of the pitfalls and temptations life presented. At the tender age of twenty, it seemed he’d partaken of more than his share.

Con had said Charlie was to be spirited away today. Laurette noted a portmanteau open on the rug. She knew her brother had sold everything he had of any value. What remained was rubbish. Con had promised to outfit the boy properly for his adventure, furnishing the tutor, an old professor of his, with enough money to see them through any inevitability. Laurette was grateful Charlie wouldn’t be entrusted with the pursestrings.

She turned the bedroom door handle gingerly, although judging from the inebriated snores from the sofa, Charlie was dead to this world and the next. She had the foresight to arrange for a basin of water before she left last night, and proceeded to scrub last night’s sin from her skin. She stared, unflinching, in the cloudy mirror over the dresser. She was now a kept woman.

Once she had given Con her love freely, even though she knew the consequences. Even after the farce of his marriage,
she had made him to come to her. Needed him with a longing that had not dissipated despite her every effort to drive Con from her heart. She stood now as fallen as she’d ever been, fornicator, adulteress, unwed mother, whore. Harsh words for a mostly chaste life. Odd that her reflection simply showed a woman well past her first blush of youth, eyes shadowed from lack of sleep, hair a frightful tangle from her lover’s hands. She was no alluring Siren for all that she had sinned.

She might have answered Con’s question differently last year and not found herself in this bloody predicament. He could have helped with Charlie. She would have finally been called “Mama.” But when Con had proposed to her, no mention was ever made of their daughter, just his son. He hadn’t found Marianna’s letter yet.

Beatrix had been a secret. Her secret. After years of prevarication, Laurette couldn’t seem to tell him that day, fearful of what he’d do once he’d found out. And she had been right. He had railed at her once he knew the truth, been nearly unhinged, and she had avoided him ever since.

Beatrix’s life was perfectly arranged. She was sent to her expensive school in her expensive clothes. The child’s primary affection abided with her foster parents, her Cornish Vincent relatives. Laurette would continue to receive correct, neatly-penned “Dear Cousin Laurette” letters for the rest of her life.

Laurette had been stunned by having Con waltz back into her life, assuming they could pick up where they left off. His wife was not even cold in her grave. And if Laurette agreed to marry him, she would be reminded of the loss of her daughter every single day in a marriage that came far too late. How could she permit herself to be happy? She had refused as a matter of course. No amount of imploring during the hour she spent in Con’s study had changed her mind.

Picking up her hairbrush, she worked the vicious knots out
with impatience. She had a few hours in which to sleep before Charlie left and Con’s man Aram came to fetch her. Until then, her life, such as it was, was her own. She slipped between the mended sheets she brought with her from the Lodge and fell into a dreamless sleep.

Two hours later she was awoken by a guilty Charlie, still rumpled but wearing a fresh set of clothing.

“Laurie, I’m off. Lord Conover sent word he’d make arrangements to get you back to home. I’m afraid—er, Mrs. Bagshot will want a bit of the ready for the rent.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Conover would.

“Thanks, sis. You’re a peach. You’ll be all right without me, won’t you? I don’t know exactly when we’ll be back. The old turtle in the parlor won’t say.”

Laurette smiled. The old turtle must have his itinerary and no doubt she would not be seeing her brother for at least six months. “I shall be perfectly fine, Charlie. Do behave yourself. Lord Conover is incredibly generous, giving you this opportunity.”

Charlie sat down at the edge of her bed. “I shouldn’t like it, though,” he said, a worried look upon his freckled face. If his eyes weren’t so bloodshot, he’d look like a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar. His tie was askew and Laurette sat up to straighten it.

She’d given up much for the boy he’d been, too much. But there had been no other way.

Charlie had been sent away to school thanks to her silence, discretion that had come too late to save her or her own child. One night when her parents were off gambling, Con’s uncle had come to her. Nothing, certainly not a little trollop like Laurie Vincent, would upset his plan to tie Con to Marianna Berryman. He had threatened her, but sweetened his sour words with the offer to educate her brother. So Charlie received his education—not that enough had sunk in—and
she had weaned herself away from Con. But not before she came up with a plan of her own.

It was that night that she began to plot her secret, entirely illegal wedding.

And now she had another secret she must keep from her brother. Charlie
did
love her, even if he’d been a fool.

“Conover has concern for the inhabitants of Vincent Lodge, you know. We are neighbors, after all,” Laurette said, soothing her brother’s bruised pride.

“He won’t—won’t bother you when I’m gone?”

Perhaps her brother wasn’t as naïve as she thought.

“Whatever was between us is long over,” she lied. “We were practically children. It was only calf-love. He married, and I have my charitable interests.” Charity that she could ill-afford, but now Con’s allowance would enable her to be far more beneficent. Her family was really costing him quite a lot, but he had just begun to pay.

Her brother sighed dramatically. “I’ve mucked it up, haven’t I, Laurie? I meant to win, y’know. But I’ll do better in the future, I swear. When I get back, I’ll be prepared to study. Put my nose to the grindstone.”

“Indeed you will.” She pecked him on the cheek. “Now, don’t keep the turtle waiting. What is his name?”

“Dr. Griffin. Old as the hills, he is. Hope he doesn’t keel over in some temple.”

“You’ll just have to brush up on the last rites, then,” Laurette teased. “Go! All will be well.”

With a foolishly deep bow, her brother left the bedroom and Laurette sagged back into the pillows. Sunlight slanted into the shabby room, revealing every mote of dust. Mrs. Bagshot was certainly not a good housekeeper, for all she gouged her lodgers out of their coin. London was ridiculously dear.

But now Laurette had enough money for a hot bath and a decent breakfast. She made the arrangements with the dis
dainful Mrs. Bagshot, who was unimpressed with the Vincents’ suspiciously sudden wealth. Laurette had come to town without her maid Sadie, another mark against her. The woman had probably seen her with Con in the wee hours. Couldn’t have missed the fierce embrace. Laurette smiled to herself. She was a wicked woman. And determined to be more wicked still.

Once she was grudgingly fed and freshened, she packed her few belongings and paced the squalid little parlor until Con’s man Aram knocked politely on the door. Laurette had already heard his quiet but firm argument below with Mrs. Bagshot, who had let out a horrified shriek when she opened her door to the dark-skinned man. Laurette was more fascinated than shocked. Con had described his factotum, who was much more than a servant to him. He and his wife Nadia would see to her every need in her new abode. Nadia was to be her lady’s maid and companion as she waited, apparently naked, for her lover to visit.

Aram was tall, dressed in a long embroidered vest over a linen shirt, and loose pants. The metallic threads gleamed in the morning sun, even though Mrs. Bagshot’s windows were dusted with soot. When he bowed, Laurette was dazzled by the movement.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to settle the rent with that woman before she lets us leave,” Laurette said. “I don’t think she’ll be satisfied with my promises.”