The Mistress Memoirs Read online

Kate stared at the dress.

  “Is something wrong? You can’t wait until the morning to try it on. It might need a tuck here and there.”

  “I don’t think I want to wear it,” Kate said, torn between her husband’s feelings and her attraction to the gown.

  “Well, you’re marrying the first man I ever loved. Wearing the dress his enemy made for me doesn’t seem all that offensive in comparison.”

  “What is it you want me to jot down? I’m too tired to write much tonight.”

  Georgette walked to the dressing table and picked up a wedge of crumbly cheese. “The first thing is a chapter that I have reconsidered: I don’t want to reveal that Baron Atwood attended the opera dressed as a woman.”

  “That couldn’t wait, madam?”

  “He was a nice enough man, but far more fun as a lady until he fought a duel over a gambling debt in his skirts. I don’t wish to shame him.”

  “Fine.”

  “Oh, dear.” Georgette’s attention had been drawn to the painting mounted above the mantelpiece. “Have you seen what the shepherd and shepherdess are doing under the hay in this watercolor?”

  “What else did you wish me to revise in your memoirs, madam?”

  “Revise? Oh. I’d forgotten. There was a bishop who propositioned me in a graveyard while his innocent wife sat nearby in their carriage. Should I reveal his name?”

  Kate ran her fingers over the bodice of the blue gown. “Absolutely. But not tonight.”

  “Then in the morning.”

  “I have as much invested in seeing you successfully published as do you.”

  Georgette shook her head. “Will you wear the gown?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Try it on first thing in the morning. I’ll even make an attempt to rise early to see what it looks like.”

  “Thank you, madam.”

  “It’s nothing. I’ll never marry again. Why should it go to waste?”

  Chapter 41

  The wedding ceremony took place before breakfast the following day. Etta and Charles had made friends among the servants’ children; Brian took his first tour of a proper paddock and stable yard. And Georgette, whose penchant for luxury might have been overstimulated by the grandeur of the estate, had kept Kate up again half the night with a spate of suddenly recalled amorous anecdotes and morsels of advice to be included in her memoirs. “I was born to be pampered,” she said as her only excuse for taking advantage once again of Kate’s devotion. “I have worked diligently at my profession. Where is my reward?”

  At daylight a troop of chambermaids in frilly caps and starched aprons bustled into the room with buckets of hot water for a bath. Lady Julia arrived shortly thereafter with another maid to arrange Kate’s hair and to approve the minor alterations that had been hastily made on the dress meant for Georgette, who had not yet left her room.

  Kate turned to Lady Julia, curtsying deeply in the blue bridal gown, which rustled in the stillness of the breaking sunlight. “I don’t know how I’ll find the courage to do this.”

  Julia laughed, her red hair a stunning contrast to her ivory skin. “I don’t know how I found the nerve to marry Heath, either, especially since I shot him in the backside when we first met. I thought he was a fox. Not only did he forgive me for that accident, but by some miracle, he fell in love with me.” She gave Kate an impulsive hug. “You’ll fit perfectly into the family. We are every one of us awful and awe-inspiring.”

  “But I have skeletons in my closet,” Kate murmured.

  “All the better. If there’s one thing this family can’t abide, it’s a person who claims to have lived a perfect life. In fact, when we return to London, we’ll have a ladies’ cabal and confess all the sins we’ve committed in the name of love.”

  “London?” Somehow she had put the thought of that city from her mind. To return would be to awaken memories of the one incident she had prayed to forget.

  “Speaking of sins,” Julia continued, in a lower voice, “I would be grateful if you could arrange for Jane and me to meet Mrs. Lawson for a little tête-à-tête. She must have a few scandals of her own to share.”

  “Oh, she does,” Kate said enthusiastically. She might not feel at ease boasting on her own behalf. But she wasn’t shy when it came to dropping hints in high places to stir up publicity for Georgette’s fame. “Scandals that I have sworn never to share aloud. Unsurpassed deeds of such indecency that my face burns at the mere thought of them.”

  Julia smiled at her in curiosity. “Now I’m dying to know.”

  “All will be revealed in due time,” Kate murmured as if she were a fortune-teller at a country fair.

  “You don’t say.”

  “No,” Kate said quickly. “I didn’t. I won’t. I—” Her eyes widened at the rap on the door.

  “It’s time, my lady,” the chambermaid said.

  “You’d better go,” Kate whispered to Julia, taking one last look at herself in the cheval glass. That elegant creature wasn’t Kate Walcott. “You’ve been too kind to me already.”

  “Well, I’m not kind enough to commit bigamy with my husband’s cousin, or to stand in as your proxy. So yes, my dear. Go.”

  “But she said—”

  “Lady Boscastle. She was using the title that will henceforth be yours, unless you miss your wedding.”

  “Oh.” Kate stared at the door, her lips compressed to contain her laughter, while Julia made no effort at all to control hers.

  * * *

  Colin had never thought he would know happiness again. He’d made a mess of the past. The future was uncertain. But for this moment, as his cousin Heath walked Kate to the altar of the small chapel, he felt an overpowering sense of love for her that gave him hope that if he could change, then anything could.

  After all, he had a family to protect. As he had promised Kate, he would never turn his back on those Brian loved or who loved his son. He looked at Nan, snoring in the bride’s pew, then at Georgette, weeping her heart out as if this were a funeral instead of a wedding.

  His wedding.

  He smiled down at Kate and saw no one else—because in all of England there was no woman to compare. She looked too beautiful to touch in her shimmering blue dress with its deep ruffles of white satin. She had put her trust in him. Now he would endure the torture of a wedding reception and the hours before dark until he would have her to himself. Then he would touch and possess her whenever and wherever it pleased him. Or her.

  * *

  * * *

  “It was a beautiful wedding,” she whispered as he carried her across the threshold of the tower room. “It would have been proper of us if we’d stayed for at least half of the reception.”

  He deposited her on the four-poster, leaning down to kiss her into breathless silence. “I took the idea from a play I recently saw. You may have heard of it, The Abduction of a Governess? The lead actress was so beautiful that a war was fought over her. I didn’t think you’d want that to happen on our wedding night.”

  She rose from the bed, laughing, and locked her arms around his neck. “Did you see the look on Georgette’s face when you picked me up in front of everyone in the reception hall? For an instant I thought she would order you to put her companion down.”

  His grin deepened the grooves in his cheeks. “Let her take care of herself. She has a dozen servants at her command. Better yet, let me take care of you.”

  “Are you offering to brush out my hair, tighten my corset, and fetch me my shawl when I complain of cold?”

  “No, Lady Boscastle. But I’ll be more than happy to unlace your stays, place you flat on your back, and warm you with my body before you have a chance to feel a hint of cold.”

  “Give me a chance to catch my breath.”

  He shook his head, walking her against the door and bolting it behind her back at the same time.

  “Whyever not?” she asked weakly as he first removed her veiled cap and then untied the sleeves that fluttered like wings from
her shoulders. There would be nothing angelic of her left after tonight.

  “I want you to be breathless until morning.”

  His large hands skimmed her waist, slowing at her hips to unfasten her overskirt. The tight bows unfurled at his urging. He unfastened the buttons that secured the back of her gown. Then off slid her petticoats, along with the rest of her undergarments.

  * * *

  He was right. When her bare shoulder met the cool surface of the oaken door, he slid one hand around her neck and warmed her skin with his gloved fingers. His other hand played with her breasts until he dipped his head to lash at each engorged tip in unhurried enjoyment.

  She reached between them and pulled the glove from the hand that was caressing her breast. “I still think we should have made more of an attempt at a subtle escape,” she whispered, dropping his gray glove to the floor in a flagrant act of enticement that Georgette would have applauded.

  He glanced down, then up at her again, assessing her as he would a rival. “If my son’s governess sees that, I’ll be done for.”

  She stared back at him with a guileless smile, feeling behind her back for his other glove. She who was experienced in undressing wriggling children found a willing husband to be less of a challenge. The glove sailed through the air and hit the dressing screen. “Kiss me once,” she whispered. “Then take off your clothes. And make this kiss count.”

  His hand glided up her nape and sank into her thick hair. His head lowered. He forced her against the door, let her body cushion the angular planes of his. His kiss ravished her, dominated, and demanded that she yield, left without a single defense or doubt that he could deliver whatever she needed.

  She gasped into his mouth, felt his hand stealing down her belly to the slickness between her thighs. He pushed three fingers inside her at once, still kissing her into dark oblivion until he broke away, breathing hard, staring at her through heavy-lidded eyes.

  “There’s champagne on the night table,” he said, pulling off his white neckcloth. “Pour a glass.”

  She smiled. “For you or for me?”

  “For you.” He removed his long-tailed coat, lifting his damp fingers to his lips. “I’ll drink what’s left.”

  She poured two glasses, leaving hers untouched, and retreated to the bed, so desperate for him that she did not trust herself to hold the champagne flute in her hands. She sat and examined his God-given attributes through the half-open bed curtains. He undressed in front of the fire, treating her to such an uninhibited display of his body that she felt hot and faint.

  His shoulders. Was that the part of his body that she loved best? Or his arms, the muscles so deeply defined. But nothing compared to his eyes. He could entice her to her last breath with those blue eyes.

  “I hope you aren’t falling asleep in there,” he said casually, unfastening the fly of his pantaloons to release his hard erection. His clothes cast off, he walked, comfortable in his devastating nudity, to push open the curtains behind which she waited. “Lady Boscastle?”

  “Sir Colin.”

  She rolled onto her stomach, undulating to the edge of the bed, where he stood, thighs apart, his rampant manhood so close she could kiss its engorged crown. Which she did.

  “Kate,” he said hoarsely. “Oh, please.”

  Her tongue traveled the length of the pulsing-veined flesh to the root of his dark, crisp hair. She inhaled his scent.

  He stared down at her through half-closed eyes. She pushed up on her elbows, emboldened by the groan of pure animal pleasure that escaped him. He was hers to tease, to please. She lapped her tongue around the head of his prick, encouraging him to thrust into her mouth.

  “Is it too much?”

  “Is it too much for you?” She settled into a more comfortable position, taking more of him into her mouth. Just as his hips jerked, she let him slide out between her swollen lips. He was shaking. When his breathing grew calmer, she began again to stroke her tongue in a spiral around the core of him.

  “Enough,” he whispered, not moving.

  She couldn’t stop. She wanted the taste of him in her throat. She wanted to seduce and enslave him as he had her. She levered herself closer still and settled her hands on his steel-hard hips, all the better to concentrate on her job.

  He was hers. He was close to climax. She felt the tension in his body, in her own. But just when she thought she had turned the tables on him, she found herself lifted from her advantageous position and redeposited on her posterior at the edge of the bed.

  He stood over her, his face hard and hungry, his large hands sliding under her bottom.

  “What are you—”

  He pushed her thighs wide apart. Her legs dangled. Her feet just reached the floor. “You tear my heart into pieces, Kate. I thought I had lived in darkness for so long, I wouldn’t be able to recognize the daylight again if I saw it. But I have a fever for you in my blood that at times I feel will consume me.”

  And as he covered her with his body, she was aware only of the love that filled her heart and the desperate heat he kindled in her body.

  Chapter 42

  On Wednesday afternoon it rained. Colin informed the rest of the house that his wife was indisposed, and that was the end of that. The only persons wicked enough to listen outside the tower door to the odd noises within were Etta and Charlie. When discovered by Georgette, they only made matters worse by asking her whether Kate had contracted the same malady that plagued their mother.

  “Whatever do you mean?” Georgette asked crossly, dragging each by the hand down the stairs.

  “Well,” Charlie said. “Those are the noises that you make when you’ve taken a new lover.”

  “Lover?” Georgette said in shock. “How many times do I have to explain that your mother takes protectors?”

  Etta looked at Charlie. “That must be what they mean by being lovesick. I don’t want to catch it, do you?”

  “Bend over, both of you,” Georgette said, dropping their hands to raise hers.

  “Run for it!” Charlie said to Etta, and at the foot of the stairs he charged off to the right, and Etta to the left, their mutiny synchronized for maximum confusion.

  Lord Heath came sauntering down the hall from the library. “Is anything wrong, Mrs. Lawson?”

  “Yes.” She sniffed back a tear of pride and self-pity. Wasn’t there an ugly man in the entire Boscastle family? Was her son destined to turn women into puddles of hopeless admiration?

  “What is it?” he asked with such concern that she was almost ashamed of her thoughts.

  “I’ve lost my companion, the one person who took care of me with unfailing devotion, who saw me at my worst and still loved me—and who even loved the monsters that will no doubt be the death of me.”

  He smiled, a man who apparently was not flustered by monstrous children or emotional women. In fact, she had a feeling that nothing upset him. “It may seem difficult to accept today, but—”

  “It is your cousin’s fault,” she burst out. “He wasn’t content to ruin my life once. He had to come back and do it again.”

  Heath blinked. “Surely you cannot blame my cousin for wanting to protect you and your family from a murderer? I know you have been inconvenienced, displaced, left in an uncertain condition, but you have to agree that it is at least a safer one.”

  “Murderer,” she muttered.

  “Colin understands that you still feel an attachment to this man, that you are not entirely convinced of his guilt.” He hesitated. “A woman of your passionate reputation will find a guardian the moment she makes it known she is back on the market for one.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Unless you aren’t on the market, in which case I apologize profusely—”

  “What I’m in the market for is a companion and governess like the one your cousin stole from me. I don’t want another protector. The life of a courtesan exhausts one after a time.”

  “I can imagine,” he said politely, taking a pause.
“What do you want, then?”

  “I can’t tell you,” she said, sighing deeply.

  “Why not?”

  “The success of my dream demands the utmost secrecy.”

  Heath studied her as if he were decoding an encrypted message. “Solving problems, puzzles, is my passion, Mrs. Lawson. I don’t know why, but I sense that I could be of help to you. But, of course, you would have to trust me and know that I have never broken a confidence. Do you wish to speak at length about your situation? If so, we can talk in the library.”

  * * *

  On Thursday evening Grayson Boscastle, Marquess of Sedgecroft, his wife, his son, and a phalanx of personal attendants swept into the driveway and disappeared into the house before Kate could hasten to the staircase. To her disappointment she could not get a decent look at anyone except a tall footman snapping out orders. She returned to her room and went to the window, while her husband slept fitfully in their marriage bed. The momentous occasion of Sedgecroft’s arrival was marked only by the joyful barking of his keen-scenting wolfhounds and a flash of gold across the skies—a white-orange burst so bright that Kate opened the window to stare outside and wonder what natural phenomenon she had witnessed.

  A meteor shower? Lightning? She felt a chill of excitement like a child on Christmas morning. She hopped back to bed, knocking her knee into her husband’s head as he awakened to question what she was doing. In a blur of movement he had a pistol pointed at the window. “What’s the matter?” he said gruffly.

  “It’s like Cinderella’s coach. It’s a fairy tale. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful—good grief, put down that gun. It’s off-putting, I tell you. What if I brandished a pistol every time the children barged into the room?”

  “They’d likely have learned to knock by now.”

  “Or you’d have shot one of them.”

  “Take off that night rail.”

  She crawled into bed beside him. “I can’t believe I have the shivers. Feel my arms.”

  “It’s our honeymoon. You should be shivering and I should be feeling more than your arms.”