Marrying the Mistress

‘Dance with me,' he whispered.

My eyes must have reflected my doubts, but he did not accept my refusal. Standing abruptly, he held out a hand and raised me to my feet, leading me like a sleepwalker into the ballroom, where we joined the end of the line, moving into the steps as we went, turning, parting, closing, balancing.

If there were stares of disapproval neither of us noticed, only the slow and stately steps that moved us apart and together again, our bodies and hands just touching, like those six years condensed into six minutes. His eyes were brazen with desire, and mine were speaking of I know not what, except too much of my feelings. I knew then that I was losing control, that I was showing him what was in my secret heart, because, with his outspoken talk of wanting me, he had found a way in.

Juliet Landon
's keen interest in art and history, both of which she used to teach, combined with a fertile imagination, make writing historical novels a favourite occupation. She is particularly interested in researching the early medieval and Regency periods and the problems encountered by women in a man's world. Her heart's home is in her native North Yorkshire, but now she lives happily in a Hampshire village close to her family. Her first books, which were on embroidery and design, were published under her own name of Jan Messent.

Recent novels by the same author:

ONE NIGHT IN PARADISE
THE WIDOW'S BARGAIN
THE BOUGHT BRIDE
HIS DUTY, HER DESTINY
THE WARLORD'S MISTRESS
A SCANDALOUS MISTRESS
^*
DISHONOUR AND DESIRE
^*
THE RAKE'S UNCONVENTIONAL MISTRESS
^*

*
Ladies of Paradise Road

Madame Helene Follet, High-Class mantua-maker and milliner of Blake Street, York, would have kept records and notes of what she bought, designed and sold, the colours, sizes and weights, and price per yard. Such notes would have been packed into a book amongst snippets of velvet, calico and silk, lace and ribbons, pinned in tiers or wound around cards thick enough to prevent the book from closing properly.

As an embroiderer, I could not resist making one for her using a method known nowadays as ‘altered books'. For this, I took an old book with hard covers that I no longer wanted and removed many of the pages with a sharp craft knife, leaving about 2 cms next to the spine. On these attached strips I stuck prettily-patterned replacement pages. Then I did what Helene would have done, packing each substitute page with Regency details, letting ribbons hang, arranging pages by colour, drawing hats and bonnets, cutting out pictures from brochures and postcards, sticking on scraps of fabrics that Helene would have known, stripes, florals, tiny prints and glittery bits. Papers can be bought from craft shops for the purpose. Just cut, arrange, pin and stick. I should warn you, it can become addictive.

To finish, it is usual to re-cover the original backing (i.e. the covers) with a suitable heavy duty paper that complements the interior.

York—April 1802

I
t was hardly more than two miles from the centre of York to the racecourse at Knavesmire, a distance that only a few months ago, the Honourable Linas Monkton would have been happy to ride on horseback without the least discomfort. On this occasion, however, his young mistress, Miss Helene Follet, had put her foot down and ordered the barouche to be made available, for nowadays Linas's cough left him weak, sweating with pain and gasping for breath. She dared not allow it, although she would have liked to ride her own black mare that weekend.

‘I feel sure we're in for some showers,' she said, noting the bending tree-tops as they passed out of Micklegate, ‘and I don't fancy getting soaked as we watch your brother's horses go through their paces. If it turns out fine, I'm sure he'll lend us two of his hacks to ride. Did you remember to pack the new linctus?'

‘I expect Nairn did. You look very nice, my dear.'

Linas's compliments rarely went beyond ‘nice' or ‘smart', which Helene thought more appropriate for soldiers. ‘Thank you.' She smiled. She had made the outfit herself, including the beaded panel down the front and the frilled chemisette that showed inside the neckline. The matching bonnet of ruched blue-grey silk had been made by her, too, after the latest French styles.

Linas himself ought to have been tucked up warmly in his Stonegate home on such a raw April day, but it was the start of the York racing season and nothing would have persuaded him to refuse his twin brother's invitation to stay the weekend at Abbots Mere, so close to the racecourse. The invitation had been to stay for a week, but Helene had balked at that and Linas, aware of a certain tension between his mistress and his brother, had not insisted on more than two nights.

Helene would rather not have gone at all. Although she enjoyed the races and the sight of horses in a herd at full gallop, bright with silks and shine, she could not look forward with anything like the same enthusiasm to meeting the Abbots Mere set, which, as like as not, would include a similar herd of Lord Winterson's mistresses, past, present and hopeful.

The twins were unlike each other in most respects, Linas being far from robust but still trying to emulate his brother in so many ways, by taking a mistress, for instance, and by trying to prove his fitness when it was plain to see, to Helene at least, that he grew weaker with each passing season. Lord Winterson's rude health needed no proof, for one look at his powerful physique was enough to convince any critic that his parents'
recipe had favoured the first of the two to emerge with good looks, intelligence, and enough charm to ladle out whenever he felt he could spare the effort. At other times he could be insufferably proud and offhand, and it was said that one of Winterson's set-downs could cause a recipient's disappearance for as long as a six-month.

Linas had never indulged in that kind of high-handedness except occasionally to the servants, and it was this brand of gentle courtesy that had won Helene over. After insisting that she would never again become intimate with a man for money, however high-born, she had relented and become Linas Monkton's mistress, companion and nurse. That had been two years ago when she was still seventeen, two years in which there had been no sign of pregnancy, in spite of her desire to bear his child before it was too late.

Perhaps it was already too late, for Linas had not visited her bed once in the last two months on the pretext that any physical exercise brought on his coughing spasms. Tomorrow would be her nineteenth birthday. She hoped he might visit her, if only to be held in her arms.

It was unproductive to speculate on the welcome they would receive, Helene having no reason to suppose that they would be treated with anything but courtesy and, in her lover's case, with affection too. The brothers were very fond of each other, and although no obvious favour was offered to Linas when taking part in the usual manly activities, Helene nevertheless suspected that Lord Winterson kept a very careful eye on his brother, stopping within his limits or suggesting an
easier route, ostensibly for his own benefit. Visiting Linas's home on Stonegate, Winterson never stayed long enough to tire him, nor was anything ever said in her presence about the array of medicines at Linas's elbow.

Helene hoped it was obvious to Winterson that she was taking every conceivable care of his brother without molly-coddling him, but the feeling persisted that he thought her a young social-climbing nobody on the look-out for a wealthy patron who would feather her nest for as long as possible. If he had taken the trouble to find out, she thought, he might have discovered the truth of the matter, that Miss Helene Follet was in fact a certain Miss Helen Follethorpe of Bridlington, only thirty miles or so away on the Yorkshire coast, where her father had once been mayor. Had it not been for Leonard Follethorpe's unfortunate experience, she would still be living with her family in comfort instead of selling herself to support those of her family who remained. Five years ago, taking a lover had been the very last thing on her mind, but she could be of little help to her family on the pittance she had earned as a York mantua-maker's assistant, and one could not be too finicky when near-starvation was a real alternative.

To say she resented Winterson's thinly veiled contempt would not have been an exaggeration. His manner was correct and as icy as if she'd been a crusty old dowager of fifty instead of a sleek raven-haired beauty of nineteen, giving her no opportunity to be as sisterly as she was with her own two young brothers. Not even for Linas's sake did Lord Winterson do anything to endear himself to her, and now as he strode
out of the great Tudor porchway of Abbots Mere with three gigantic wolfhounds at his heels, his smile skimmed over her as if she were merely the housekeeper or Linas's nurse. The hand he extended came just a little too late to help her out of the barouche.

‘Miss Follet,' he said, keeping the hand out so that she was obliged to accept it. ‘Welcome to Abbots Mere.' The greeting was formal, and not particularly convincing.

She had tried to ignore the ambiguous emotions that bedevilled her, but the contrast between Linas and his twin was so transparent, and she herself so receptive to all the differences between one man in the prime of his life and one whose prime had never quite materialised, that she now found it easier to accept it than question it. Winterson did not have his brother's lanky loping frame of a tired racehorse, but the deep-chested, well-toned solidness of a hunter.

Helene watched him move gracefully aside, her eyes taking their own wayward course over the broad smooth line of his riding coat, the bulge in his tight breeches, the tan-cuffed riding boots with spurs, and the muscled calves. Reprimanding herself, she refused to acknowledge the stark truth that she might have wished this man's physical endowments upon his sibling, forcing herself instead to smile at the brotherly embrace and the genuine laughter accompanying it. The stifling, insistent beat of her heart, so long starved of its own special excitement, was quelled with some effort as she diverted her thoughts towards Linas's pleasure and what she could do to maintain it.

Noting how Linas caressed the ears of the nearest
wolfhound, she could see how happy he was to be here and to spend time in the stone-built rambling place where he'd been born. As a concession to his asthma, he kept no animals except horses, but any excuse to visit his brother's racing stable was worth the sneezing fits and the itchy rash on his wrists that Helene cooled with witch-hazel and chamomile. The prospect of sleeping in his old room at Abbots Mere brought back the laugh lines to his pale winter face and lit up the sombre darkness of his eyes, as did the appearance of Somerton, the elderly butler.

Linas took Helene by the hand. ‘Good to see you again, Somerton,' he said, creasing his papery skin with deep folds.

‘And you also, Mr Linas, sir. M'lord Burl here has had us all up since dawn to get everything ship-shape. We've even polished the hounds' collars. Welcome, Miss Follet,' he said to Helene, courteously.

‘Thank you, Mr Somerton.'

Perhaps being made aware by his butler that something more was being required of him, Winterson turned back to her to offer his arm, taking both her and Linas through a panelled passageway into the Great Hall. Again, the differences returned with the memory of that first meeting at the York Assembly Rooms when they had danced together just before she and Linas had first met, when she had seen the fear in Linas's eyes that she would surely prefer his brother Burl, as any woman would. But she had never been seriously attracted to men like Winterson with reputations for breaking hearts, nor could she afford the indulgence of falling in love. If Winterson had ever suspected that she was more
interested in a long-term relationship, then he would have been correct. She was. But her affection for the Honourable Linas Monkton was none the less genuine, for all that, and her good care of him had grown into a kind of love far beyond convenience.

The company that weekend was exactly as Helene had expected it to be, noisy, good-natured and gossipy, flirtatious and with an air of competition she felt no need to be a part of, since she was unavailable. Not that she was entirely safe from the attentions of the men, but her status and devotion were sufficient to keep all dalliance at a very superficial level. And because she posed no threat to the women, they sought her friendship and asked her advice about even the most personal matters, especially about fashion. Yet they were not the kind of people she would have chosen to spend a weekend with, and she wondered why Lord Winterson enjoyed their company so much, unless it was to watch them compete for his attention.

Although Winterson must have known about Helene's previous employment as a seamstress, she had told neither of the brothers the full story of her transformation from well-brought-up mayor's daughter to mantua-maker's assistant. If either of them ever wondered how she had acquired such singular style and elegance, how she came to be fluent in French, or why she spoke English with only the odd vowel sound to betray her northern roots, they were either too uninterested to ask, or too well bred.

But the mantua-maker herself, once she saw what a gem she had taken on, had put those accomplishments to good use, transferring her from the workroom to
front of shop, using her as a mannequin to model her creations and to suggest other ways of using accessories and fabrics with the kind of flair the older woman could only dream of. When Helene borrowed an evening dress now and again to attend the nearby Assembly Rooms with a beau, this was seen as a cheaper way of rewarding her than with money, for she was sure to tell admirers where such a beautiful gown could be made. Those years had been for Helene a time of intense learning in which she had absorbed every skill of the dressmaking trade, since then she had designed and made all her own garments, including her bonnets.

Despite her undeniable fashion ability, her popularity with Winterson's guests could not be called complete as long as Lady Veronique Slatterly was on hand to shoot down any woman perceived to be receiving more than her fair share of attention from the men, particularly from Winterson himself. Her envy of Miss Helene Follet was out of all proportion to her influence with anyone except Linas. But according to Lady Slatterly, Helene was almost one of the family whereas she herself had not yet achieved that status, nor had she any guarantee of success. Helene's superior position was too close for comfort, and the consequent trivial and ungenerous remarks that Lady Slatterly rained upon her, almost unceasingly, eventually drew even mild Linas's displeasure at dinner.

Handing Lady Slatterly a silver dish of sugary things, he told her, ‘Take a few, Veronique dear. Chew them slowly to grind your teeth down.'

Frowning, she took the dish from him. ‘What are they?' she said.

‘Little sweet things, dear. Keep them by you. You need them.'

Damned if she did, and equally damned if she declined, she glared at Linas as everyone around them laughed, but the caustic remarks stopped for the rest of the evening.

This personal sniping would not in itself have caused Helene too much concern had she not already been feeling vulnerable, vaguely insecure and unsettled by not knowing how to relate to a host who treated her with such polite indifference as if it was no possible concern of his that she was caring so well for his ailing brother. As if she was doing it more for her own benefit, rather than his. Not that she expected their undying gratitude at every end and turn, nor even their thanks. Men only rarely went in for that kind of appreciation. But nor did she appreciate being taken for granted in the offhand way these brothers had. Linas was a very dear man, but he appeared to suppose that what Helene was doing for him was no more than he deserved after what he was doing for her. And since the question of the future was a subject he particularly wished to avoid discussing, it seemed not to occur to him that Helene would have benefited from some clarity on the issue. She had a house, servants, a horse and enough money to pay her bills, but presumably those would all disappear one day, unless she could make some other arrangement.