The Mistress Memoirs Read online

  She drew in a breath. “If I had weapons available right now, I would challenge you to the death, the difference in our gender be damned.”

  “But you do have weapons,” he said, sounding faintly surprised that he should have to point this out. “You could disarm, disrobe, or destroy me if you felt the urge.”

  She shook her head, retreating from the sudden intensity in his eyes. “What’s the point?” she asked herself. “It’s useless. You’re right. I’ll never win. I don’t even want to—”

  She heard the forks and plate rattle. From the corner of her eye she watched the graceful arch of his body as he bent to put down the platter, stood, and reached for her in one supple move. His blue-black hair fell across his cheek. She went still.

  He caught her fingers. “If you ever change your mind—I won’t approach you again.”

  “Yes, you will,” she said with certainty.

  He nodded gravely. “All right. I can’t take an oath to it. But there is one thing that I need to say in my defense.”

  She glanced at the upper floor. She could hear the children jumping up and down on the beds and Nan begging them to stop.

  “What defense?” she said, diverted, tempted, and thoroughly out of sorts.

  “This.”

  Something—a glass, a vase, a mug of milk—crashed to the nursery floor. Kate still didn’t move. She was too entranced by the warm grasp of his hand to bestir a muscle. She was sorry she’d let him lure her into this conversation.

  He lowered his head. His lips skimmed her cheek. “If you insist on making me out to be a villain, then I shall have to prove myself thoroughly unprincipled. Your iron corset won’t stop me if you give me an opening. Now, do run upstairs like a good governess and stop that ungodly racket. And if you decide you’d like me to walk with you in the garden at night, you know where you can find me.”

  Chapter 28

  “Kate, you are all right, aren’t you?” Georgette inquired with a consternation that was genuine, for all that it would dissipate in a moment or two.

  “I’m well, madam,” she said, plopping down in her chair.

  “You don’t look it. I suggest you take a day off and stay in bed. I shall manage on my own for a few hours.”

  Kate nodded, determined not to justify Georgette’s concern with a yawn. Or by admitting that she was afraid of what would happen in a single day without her on watch.

  Georgette rose from the couch, her eyes tender. “Oh, foolish, foolish girl. It’s happened, hasn’t it? You’re following in my footsteps.”

  Kate stiffened in her chair. “I beg your pardon.”

  Georgette smiled at her with empathy. “That was an insulting comment. I should never judge you on the basis of my behavior. But you have to be honest with me, if I’m going to help you. What do you want?”

  “A pot of tea, a hot bath, and a good book.”

  “What do you want for the future?”

  Kate sighed. It was a little late for Georgette to be asking that now, when what Kate had thought she wanted had turned out to be an illusion. “I suppose I want children, madam, a home, a husband who will protect me. I don’t want to—”

  “—end up a whore?”

  Kate didn’t respond.

  “It’s a bitter word to say at first. But I admit it becomes sweet on the tongue. I apologize for offending you.”

  “It’s all right, madam. I’m used to it by now.” Kate turned to the desk, regaining her composure only to lose it completely at Georgette’s next startling command.

  “Come to the couch for a moment and pretend I am Colin Boscastle.”

  How Kate kept her wits about her at that instant she didn’t know.

  “Kate.” Georgette returned to the chaise, gesturing to the carpet that covered the floor. “Sit down, dear, at my feet.”

  Kate folded her arms across her chest and glanced at the table behind the couch for evidence that Georgette had been drinking.

  “You’re not fooling me, Kate. I see that smirk on your face. Sit beside the couch and pretend that I am Colin.”

  “I can’t. I refuse. It’s impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—I obviously don’t have the penchant for imagining these scenarios as you do.”

  “Nonsense. You write plays and act out the roles you’ve written. Why can’t you regard me as a fellow actor? Why can’t you view this as another performance?”

  “Why?” Kate asked, her voice as reedy as one of Pan’s pipes. “Why? I shall tell you why. You, in all your beauty, do not pierce my heart with blue eyes that evoke in me an inappropriate and mutinous sympathy—”

  “Ah.” Georgette released what could have been her dying breath for the drama it contained. “I knew. I knew it.”

  Kate felt as if the top of her head had flown off. “And I don’t stumble about in a daze hoping that I shall walk into your arms, which, in fact, are plump and white, while Sir Colin’s are corded with lovely sinew—”

  Georgette closed her eyes, murmuring. “Oh, mercy. My memory returns. Sit down, Kate, before I swoon.”

  “I wish somebody would listen to me for once in my life,” Kate bit off. “I’m certain that the children are.” She stood, turning to address the door. “Go back upstairs, you little wretches, or I’ll put all three of you over my knee and paddle the disobedience out of you!”

  Georgette’s eyes fluttered open. “How I admire you, Kate, when you assert yourself like a man. I couldn’t live without you. Now, be a good girl and sit to take instructions. I am not sending you out without a few kernels of knowledge. You have been hurt before. I promised you it would not happen again.”

  Kate folded to her knees in resignation, feeling like a ninny. “I would rather that you had been seized by inspiration and wished me to take down your thoughts for the book.”

  “And so I do. Do you need pen and paper or will you remember enough to write this down later?”

  “Why in the world do I have to pose in this irksome position?”

  Georgette smiled. During the rare moments when she managed to bring her thoughts into focus, she could concentrate with the intensity of a hawk that had spotted a mouse to hunt. “That is a position of submission.”

  Kate made to rise. “I’m returning to the children now. Heaven only knows what they must think if they’re listening.”

  “Stay.”

  “Then explain to me what this has to do with your memoirs.”

  “I have been thinking that adding a few instructive chapters might enhance the appeal of my experiences.”

  Kate’s nerves tingled in apprehension. “How instructive do you intend to be?”

  “Stop asking questions. I am Colin. You are Kate. You desire me.”

  “I—”

  “Loosen your bodice—no, leave it tightly laced. Moisten your lips. And your hair—why is it always pinned back to the sides of your head like a helmet?” She leaned down to tousle the heavy knot of hair at Kate’s neck. “That’s better.”

  “Nothing like looking slovenly to end the day.”

  “Think of Colin’s inscrutable blue eyes when he favors you with a glance. He gives nothing away. Who would ever guess that he could make a woman smolder like a volcano with only a look?”

  “Who would guess that you have ever entertained a scientific thought in your life? I’d no idea you even knew what a volcano was.”

  Georgette laughed. “I might have never known if not for Baron Fallbrook. He frequently excused his deficiencies in bed due to the hailstone that hit him in the head after the Laki volcano of 1783.”

  “The what of when?”

  “The volcanic eruption in Iceland that devastated Europe. Oh, do pay attention, Kate.”

  Kate stared up at Georgette in consideration. “The world underestimates you.”

  “As it undervalues every woman.” Georgette’s gaze wandered to the door. “Last chance—do you wish to make him yours?”

  “Madam.”

 
“Good. Look down at the floor. Now slowly lift your eyes to mine. No, no, don’t stiffen like a wooden soldier. Very gently put your hand on my boot.”

  What was the point in arguing? When one of these moods overcame Georgette, the best one could do was to humor her. Even though Kate knew that eavesdroppers lurked behind the door.

  “You are a beautiful young woman, Kate. Why are you kneeling at my feet? Do you want something of me?”

  Kate stared, ashamed to admit that when she imagined Colin asking the question, a flame caught in her belly. “All I wish is to—”

  “To?” Georgette prompted, waving her hand.

  Kate sighed. It was no wonder that the combination of Georgette’s beauty and Colin’s charisma had created a boy like Brian. Perhaps Georgette provided for her family in an immoral fashion. Perhaps Colin would ruin lives in his quest for honor. But where did Kate stand on the chessboard between these forces? Was she always to be a pawn?

  “To what?” Georgette said.

  Kate thought of some of the explicit scenes in Georgette’s book. “All I want is to be yours. I’ll do anything you ask. I’ll make all your desires come true.”

  “Will you?”

  “I just said so, didn’t I?”

  “That isn’t an enticing voice, Kate. You can’t speak to the man you are trying to seduce as if you were a turnip vendor.”

  “I’m going to seduce him?”

  “Not if you can’t keep your mind from wandering.”

  “Other women do it and don’t take lessons.”

  “Well, it really comes down to following your instincts. Unfortunately in your case, you received a brutal blow before you discovered what your instincts were.”

  “It wasn’t my instincts that turned Lord Overton into a depraved beast who ambushed women.”

  “Yes, dear. He was an aberration. Now, let us move to the specifics of how to please a man. Your intention is to convince Colin that he is the greatest lover on the Continent.” She paused. “This should not be a difficult feat, as it is quite possibly true.”

  Kate’s lips opened, but she hadn’t a notion how to respond. How did one react to such a statement? “I wouldn’t know, madam, having no true experience to use as a comparison.”

  “I’ve compared. Believe me. You cannot go to his bed a complete ignoramus.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you recall some of the positions and techniques I described when I lived in the Champagne?”

  “Champagne sounds like a good idea,” Kate said, seizing on any excuse to avoid this instruction. “I’ll send Bledridge to the cellar—”

  “Kate, you don’t have to be a harlot. Just act like one. It’s all illusion, imagination. Do you, for instance, know how to remove your clothes to tease him?”

  Kate rose and went to the mirror, her fingers lifting to the buttons of her bodice.

  “Finally,” Georgette said. “Begin to undress—slowly—one lacing, one button at a time. Moisten your lips. Send him an uncertain smile. When you expose your breasts, cup them in your hands. Hopefully your garments will drop in a delicate mound at your feet.”

  Kate turned abruptly.

  This time there was no doubt that she heard the groan of footsteps receding in the hall.

  “That does it,” she muttered, striding to the door.

  “It was probably only the maid with our beverages.”

  Kate opened the door. “Wouldn’t the maid have knocked and left a tray?”

  “You don’t have a notion what you’re in for, Kate,” Georgette said in resignation.

  * * *

  Georgette crumpled back against the cushions of her chaise, wondering when Kate would find out that Georgette had broken her vow never to reveal the details of Kate’s past. Obviously Colin had not yet told her. Would he hold his tongue forever? He had not found the words to tell the boy that he was Brian’s father, either.

  She didn’t know what he was waiting for. Georgette could not keep up this false show much longer. She could only hope that she had done the right thing, and that Colin had become a man who deserved Kate’s and Brian’s love.

  Chapter 29

  At last the night of Kate’s amateur theatrical arrived. Colin was surprised at the number of guests he escorted to seats in the salon. There were two neighboring squires who brought at least seven relatives apiece. He recognized the two spinsters who rode their phaeton across the meadow on misty mornings. They nodded at him as if he were a coconspirator in whatever plots they might be hatching beneath their white satin turbans. The bookseller and his wife attended, as did a dozen other local merchants. It gratified him to realize that not every person in the village had passed judgment on Georgette’s household.

  He did not, however, see Mason’s solicitor, Ramsey Hay, in the audience, and he remained close to the doors, where he could keep an eye on whoever came and went. He was grateful that Kate had suggested he serve as an usher instead of playing a part in her performance.

  With any luck The Abduction of Helen would proceed as Kate had written it, and Colin would pretend to watch and clap in the right places, wherever they might occur.

  The lamps in the salon dimmed. The candles that lit the stage were extinguished. The curtains groaned open to reveal the darkened figure of the narrator, whose appearance quieted the house. Her voice carried across the room, giving Colin a start.

  “At a wedding begins our tale of woe—”

  Squire Billingsley, sitting in the first row, burst into raucous laughter. “Don’t they all?”

  “Be quiet, you fool,” his wife said, glaring down her nose at him, “or I shall teach you the true meaning of tragedy when we return home.” She glanced up at the stage, waving her fan at Kate. “Go on, dear. He won’t interrupt again.”

  The squire slouched in his seat, receiving a congenial pat on the back from the gentleman behind him. Colin looked at Kate. For an instant he thought she was going to laugh herself. But then she cleared her throat and started again.

  “At a wedding begins our tale of woe.

  Only one deity was not invited to go.

  She was called Eris, goddess of strife.

  Her Apple of Discord ruined many a life.”

  As she made her exit, one of the footmen, wearing an evergreen wreath on his head and what might have been a flour sack below, dashed from urn to urn to relight the candles. Another footman was dragging furniture across the stage until the curtain closed in his face.

  Several indistinguishable players had appeared when the curtain opened on the next part of Kate’s narration.

  “Eris threw the Apple into the party just for spite.

  She knew the words inscribed on it would start a fight.

  To the fairest—but who would have to choose?

  Between Hera, Athena, Aphrodite—

  Two goddesses had to lose.

  Zeus asked Paris to take that dare.

  The Prince of Troy must pick the goddess most fair.”

  Colin glanced out the window, wondering what Mason would do if he returned right now to find his enemy ensconced, entertained in his home. What would Colin do for that matter? Take his revenge in front of spinsters and country squires? He could picture the horror on their faces and in Kate’s eyes. Why had he involved her and Georgette at all? He had no right to drag innocents into his private battle.

  He pushed off the wall as a murmur of approval rose from the audience. Good God. Every pair of eyes in the salon was riveted to the stage. Candlelight blazed on what he assumed was the scene of the wedding party.

  “Oh!” a lady in the third row gasped. “Mrs. Lawson is playing Aphrodite. Isn’t she made for the role? How naughty of her. I am so inspired by her spirit.”

  Colin grinned. He should have known that Georgette wouldn’t be content to portray the most beautiful woman in the world—she wouldn’t represent anyone less than the goddess of love and beauty. She looked quite at home in a flowing blue gown and golden girdle. He couldn’t say t
he same for the two other goddesses. Cook, not even five feet tall, was barely recognizable as herself, let alone as Hera, the queen of heaven. The crown perched on her gray-brown hair refused to stay on straight. Her golden robes might have made a more regal impression if he hadn’t recognized her scepter as the toasting fork from the kitchen.

  And if he wasn’t mistaken, Irene, the upper chambermaid, was playing the part of Athena, in a white silk robe, sandals, and a helmet whose plumage bore a remarkable resemblance to a feather duster.

  There was a long silence. Colin detected movement behind one of the pillars in the background. Where was Kate? Was that her making frantic hand signals to the adjacent pillar?

  Suddenly a small girl in ivory silk popped out from behind the first pillar and threw an apple on the table. Colin couldn’t see if the fruit was of a yellow or green variety. Etta had pitched it so fast that she hit Aphrodite on the chin.

  Aphrodite shrieked, “You could have broken one of Mama’s teeth! It’s a piece of fruit, darling, not a football!” Colin was fairly sure that those lines hadn’t been written in the play.

  But at least Etta stayed in character. As the apple bounced back onto the table, Eris ran to the front of the stage and announced: “This is what you get for not inviting me today! Read the inscription! It says: ‘The Apple is for the Fairest.’”

  The three goddesses lunged across the table, which to Colin’s amazement didn’t collapse under their combined weight. The apple, however, rolled offstage and down the center aisle. That, too, he doubted was in the script.

  “I’ve got it,” one of the spinsters in the second row shouted. “Does this mean I’m the fairest by default?”

  “Toss it this way, fair maiden!” Bledridge replied, appearing from behind a silk dressing screen on which mountains had been painted above the sea and a grassy slope.

  Colin recognized Kate’s voice from under the tapestry. “Throw it back on the table. Carefully this time.”

  Georgette, Cook, and the upper chambermaid had started circling the table as if they were boxers fighting a match and not goddesses competing in a beauty contest. Etta had crawled under the table for a close-up view, entranced by the improvised action even though Kate gestured to her repeatedly to move offstage.