Mistress By Mistake (18 page)

“I have been completely discreet. I put up at the Pig and Whistle last evening and didn’t overindulge, although the local ale is very good, I must say. Even when the landlord—Mr. Braddock, is it?—tried to pry my life story out of me, I resisted all his efforts. I even asked your vicar to introduce us this morning. No one will have an inkling of our earlier association.”

“Association!” Charlotte stamped her foot, splashing more mud on her skirts. “You blackmailed me into becoming your mistress! I trust you got the necklace back?”

They were at her gate now. One of the cats darted under a bush. Unfortunately Charlotte could detect the very distinct aroma of cat arousal. Bay seemed oblivious. He passed her the umbrella, put a hand in his pocket, and pulled out the most magnificent rope of rubies and diamonds she had ever seen. The umbrella tipped. Charlotte shut her mouth before the raindrops fell in and she drowned.

“You can see why I was anxious to have it back, I trust. Mr. Mulgrew returned it to me the other day.”

“Uh.” How absurd she was being! As if jewels meant anything to her at all. She was not Deborah. No indeed. Her head would not be turned by sparkling cold stones—

Unbidden, Bay’s written words snaked into her head.

I cannot wait to clasp the rubies and diamonds around your throat and watch as the candlelight reflects each facet on the marble whiteness of your body. For, my dearest Deborah, you shall need no other adornment than these borrowed jewels and the velvet of your own soft skin. It is my wish to fuck you until we are both quite exhausted, and then fuck you again.

She edited out the “dearest Deborah” part, feeling gooseflesh wash over her body. It was just the chill from the ever-present rain, she assured herself, nothing more. She had read those foolish letters one too many times if she could quote them so readily. Why had she packed them into her bag and not left them at Jane Street, shut tight in a dark drawer? She would burn them in the stove today. Yes, she would.

Bay wiped a raindrop from the tip of her nose and righted the umbrella. “We’re getting soaked through, Charlie. Do you think I could beg a cup of tea from you? Perhaps a bit of bread? It’s hard to believe that summer is right around the corner.”

He was talking about the weather, impudent man. As though they had some sort of normal relationship. A relationship not predicated on bullying and sinful sex and sheer terror.

Charlotte’s lips thinned. “You must leave. I understand the Braddocks put on an excellent spread at the inn.”

Bay tsked. “Here I’ve come, all this way to see you, and you want to cast me off. I confess, Charlie, I’m wounded.”

“Good! You have been nothing but a pebble in my shoe, Sir Michael, since the instant you—you—”

“Brought you to heaven beneath all those cherubs? I do remember, Charlie. There was no talk of shoes and pebbles, but rather a lot of charming undulating and heavy breathing. And love bites.” He looked so very self-satisfied she wanted to shriek.

“I propose,” he continued, “that we start again. As if that week we shared never happened. Why, I met you in church just this morning and inquired after your garden. A hobby of mine.”

“You never mentioned it before,” Charlotte muttered.

“There are a great many things you don’t know about me,” Bay smiled. “Come,
Mrs.
Fallon, you’ll catch your death out here in this drizzle. Surely you can spare me some hot water and a few tea leaves.”

“If I give you breakfast, do you promise to leave me alone?”

Bay shook his head. “I never make promises I can’t keep.” He pushed the gate in and made for her front door. “A cheerful red. Matches your roses. Did you paint the door yourself? I expect it’s unlocked. I thought about coming by last night, you know, but it was too reminiscent of our earlier introduction. And we are starting fresh.”

Charlotte found herself running after him. He turned the handle before she could make the pretense of fishing a key out of her pocket.

“Ah. I was right.” He ducked under the lintel. He was almost too tall to stand straight under her cozy ceilings. She hoped he’d knock himself unconscious. “Delightful. All this lace. I suppose you made it yourself?” He was standing in the center of her little parlor, hands in his pockets, no doubt checking to see if the blasted necklace was still there. Why on earth did he have it on his person? She supposed he didn’t trust the Pig and Whistle clientele, which was ridiculous. Visitors to Little Hyssop were pure as the driven snow. Except for him.

“Where is your wife?” she asked, acid dripping from her tongue.

“Lady Whitley is on the Continent. I hope she doesn’t bump into your sister. The resemblance might unhinge her.”

“As if she’s not completely unhinged already! The woman held a pistol to my head! And had you beaten and kidnapped!” Charlotte could still see faint traces of bruising under Bay’s chin and around his left cheek.

“I do apologize. Sincerely, Charlie.” His black eyes bore into hers. She turned away.

“It’s warmer in the kitchen. If you’re not too grand, you can sit at the table in there.”

“I’m not too grand,” he said softly. “Mrs. Kelly’s sister always welcomed me in hers when I was a lad.”

“Well, you’re overgrown now. Mind your head.” As if she cared whether he hurt himself, although it would be a chore to drag his body outside into the mud.

Bay ducked under a beam and found himself in a square snug room. The old stove threw out welcoming warmth. Filthy weather had followed him ever since he left London. He dearly hoped once he got to Bayard Court the sun would shine and the sand would run hot between his toes. Frazier, Mrs. Kelly, and Irene had already been sent ahead to open the house and alert the skeleton staff at his grandmother’s house that he was on his way. After his little adventure in London, it was time for a change of scenery.

He envisioned a picnic with Charlie, her black curls released from that dreadful little cap and blowing in the sea breeze. The secluded cove at the bottom of his cliff was perfect for bathing. Her pearly skin would shimmer in the sunlight, her spectacular breasts bob in the sea. She would be his own particular mermaid, and he most willing to crash against her rocks, lose his trousers to frolic in the surf with her.

“Do you swim?”

She was slamming tea things together, mulish. “Of course. But I am not,” she said as she hacked into a half loaf with a deadly looking knife, “going to Bayard Court or anywhere else with you.”

“I’ll give you five thousand pounds.”

The knife clattered to the floor. He knew he was utterly mad. The plan was to woo her away from Little Pileup gently, and he’d just baldly offered her a fortune—an insane amount, five times the amount he’d given Deborah to seal their deal. What had come over him? Charlie had. She had come over him, under him, virtually into him. He wanted her as he had not wanted a woman since Anne. It had been impossible to shake the thoughts of her away, and Lord knows, he had tried.

At first he’d been unable to get the image of her frightened white face out of his mind. He saw her sitting frozen in that blue chair, her scarlet dress like a splash of blood. It had taken him hours that day before his heart beat normally, but then he’d had his hands rather full encouraging Anne to make her travel arrangements. His subsequent guilt over Charlie proved to be overwhelming, and he decided he must make more of an effort to make things up to her for Anne’s insanity. Charlie had taken such a paltry amount from Frazier and deserved so much more for the trouble their acquaintance had visited upon her. He consulted with his banker, planning to soothe his culpability with cold, hard cash.

But then Bay saw her in his mind’s eye when she wasn’t frightened, when she was pink and warm and honeyed in his arms, when she was shuddering in pleasure, weeping his name as she crested beyond her prim propriety. This image swiftly overtook the first, and had haunted him in his lonely bed for several nights. He decided to see her himself and make sure she was all right. It was the gentlemanly thing to do.

Only he had the most ungentlemanly thoughts. Even with her nasty gray dress and grim face, he wanted to find the nearest feather bed and kiss her senseless. Everywhere.

“You are absolutely mad. You cannot buy my company, not for any price.” She flew around the kitchen with even more irritation than before, embarking on a long litany of his deficits. Bay sat back in his humble chair watching her with appreciation. It was not every nearly virgin spinster who would turn down five thousand pounds. So eloquently, too, although he stopped paying attention somewhere around the ninth or tenth “fiend.” Charlie was a most unusual woman. He was right to come, even if his noble impulses were now tucked into a pocket and the devil was stirring in his trousers.

“Well?” she asked somewhat shrilly.

Bay gathered himself from his fantasy. “I beg your pardon. What is the question?”

“Milk or lemon? If it’s lemon, I haven’t any. I’m sure they have lemons at the Pig and Whistle. Barrels of them.” She slopped a white pottery mug of tea on the table. The Welsh dresser had some lovely blue and white dishes, but he had been given this rude, misshapen cup with a significant and deadly looking chip right where he might place his lips.

“Just sugar, Charlie. I’ll need something sweet if I’m to sit here being harped at.”

“Harped at? I’ve not
begun
to harp!” She shoved a sugar bowl at him and tongs clattered after it. “You will ruin me! There are probably twenty people staring out their cottage windows waiting for you to emerge. I don’t know why I let you in, I really don’t.” She sat down abruptly and covered her face with her hands.

They were a bit rough, he noted, probably from the gardening and doing for herself in her little house. He should have known that first night when he felt them on his back and buttocks that they were not the hands of a cosseted mistress. But he’d been rather too busy to think.

“Charlie,” he said carefully, “there is no reason for you to be upset.”

“No reason? Because of you I was almost killed!”

“Well,” he replied, dropping a small lump of sugar into the mug, “I suppose I could say the same. But here we are, sharing a comforting cup of tea.” He stuck his finger in and swished, as she hadn’t provided him with a spoon. It was tepid at best. She really must be trying to rush him out of here.

Charlie got up and went to her sideboard. She took down a fragile cup and saucer set and poured her own cold tea, still looking troubled. He wanted to ease the little
v
that appeared between her dark brows, lift the clouds from her blue eyes, turn her rosy lips up in a smile. “Six thousand,” he said.

Charlie choked on her tea. She set the china down with a crash. “Have you not heard a word I’ve said?”

Bay smiled. “I’m afraid not. I was too busy watching you storm around the kitchen in high dudgeon. You are very captivating when you’re angry.”

Charlie gave a disgusted sniff. “Please. Do be original.”

“It’s true. You are so full of pique and passion, you’ve made an indelible impression on me. I would not be here otherwise.”

“Let me see if I understand you. You will pay me
six thousand pounds
to go to Dorset with you.”

Bay folded his hands and nodded. This was not entirely how he wanted to woo her to Bayard Court for a romantic interlude. Offering money was so crass. But he was in sore need of comfort, and it seemed Charlie was the only one who could provide him succor. She was not the only one who’d been terrified recently. The sooner he wiped Anne Whitley from his consciousness, the happier he would be.

“You truly have six thousand pounds to throw away for a few days of sexual congress?”

“I had hoped you would spend the summer with me there actually,” Bay said calmly.

Charlie got up as if she were sleepwalking. She came back to the table with a jar of golden plum jam, centering it in front of her. Bay’s stomach rumbled. Surely she was not going to eat without offering him anything. The knife still lay on the floor where she had dropped it earlier. He rose, picked it up, and sliced another piece of bread. “Where do you keep your cutlery?”

She pointed silently to the Welsh dresser. He opened a drawer and took out a spoon from the modest collection of coin silver and tin. Grabbing two plates, he went to work making a jam sandwich for each of them. He gobbled his in three bites while she stared at hers as if she wasn’t quite sure what it was.

“Why?”

Bay swallowed the last chunk. The jam was delicious. He’d seen the plum trees in her front garden. He actually did have an interest in gardening; he was Grace’s grandson, after all. This jar was probably the last of the previous summer’s bounty. A few more mysterious glass containers were lined up on the dresser. Charlie probably put them up herself. “Why what?”

“You have your pick of any lightskirt in London. You own a house on Jane Street, for heaven’s sake, a guarantee that you can attract the most discriminating whore. And I know there is such a thing. I got to know the neighbors a bit. It was—they were astonishing.”

Bay smiled to think of Charlie in the midst of a group of courtesans. He knew there were regular entertainments on Jane Street. He just hadn’t imagined his Charlie being entertained.

“I prefer you, Charlie. We were becoming well used to each other, and not in any sort of boring way, I might add. If you are worried about your reputation, don’t be. Bayard Court is somewhat isolated. Frazier and Mrs. Kelly and Irene will be on hand to provide discreet service. I let most of my grandmother’s staff go when I shut up the house—and found them all employment, so you can wipe that sneer off your face,
Mrs
. Fallon. The neighbors will respect that I’m in mourning and not expect me to partake in the social scene, what there is of it. We’ll have time to get to know each other better.”

“Whatever makes you think I want to get to know you better?” Charlie’s face was bright red again, not a good omen.

Bay shrugged. “You must admit we were getting on quite well toward the end. I was on my way to visit you when I was kidnapped that night, you know.”