The Earl's Mistress Read online

  Mrs. Aldridge was shaking all over now. “How very much you must despise yourself, Lord Hepplewood, to behave with such lechery,” she declared, one hand seizing his doorknob.

  “Spoken like a true governess, Mrs. Aldridge,” he said mordantly. “Perhaps you might like to take me upstairs for punishment? Sauce for the gander, hmm?”

  A sneer sketched across her beautiful face. “You may go to the devil, Lord Hepplewood, and be served a proper punishment,” she replied, yanking open the door. “It would have to be a cold day in hell before any respectable woman would lie with the likes of you.”

  At that the door swung wide; so wide the hinges shrieked and the brass knob cracked against the oak paneling behind.

  As to the lady, she plunged into the shadows and vanished.

  Lord Hepplewood sat back down and wondered vaguely if he’d gone mad.

  How very much he must despise himself!

  Oh, the woman really had no clue. . . .

  And now he was supposed to forget he’d ever laid eyes on Mrs. Aldridge and her softly parted lips? Well, be damned to her, then, the purple-eyed bitch.

  He would do precisely that.

  Hepplewood got up again and kicked his chair halfway across the room.

  CHAPTER 2

  Isabella’s tears had run dry by the time she reached King’s Cross two days later. Indeed, they had dried before she’d left Northumbria, since she’d been obliged to put up another night at the damp coaching inn near Loughford in order to be hauled rather gracelessly in a farm cart down to Morpeth to catch the morning train.

  So much for Lord Hepplewood’s noblesse oblige, she thought bitterly. The man was a cad and a bully.

  But he was not quite a liar, was he?

  Isabella could still hear his rich, deep laughter ringing in her ears. Dear God, would she have kissed him?

  The truth was, she did not perfectly remember the moment when he’d seized her and lowered his mouth to hers. She could remember only the overwhelming strength of his grip and his warm scent drowning her. The sensation of her knees buckling beneath a wave of sudden longing. The shiver of his muscles as her hand went skating up his back.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid woman!

  Until that moment, she could have saved the situation. She was sure she could have done, for she’d needed that job so desperately.

  But then the man had tried to kiss her, and rather than hold the course, her bloody brain had gone to mush! She had proven his very point—that she’d no business anywhere near him—and lost her opportunity. And all for what? The heat of a man’s touch?

  Isabella swallowed hard and closed her eyes. Good Lord, had she no pride?

  But pride always went before a fall, did it not? That was what her old vicar had been ever fond of saying. Moreover, during that long, sleepless night beneath the Rose and Crown’s moldering bedcovers, she’d had much time to consider—and cry over—what her pride had brought her to.

  Had she been overly proud? Did she deserve this fall? A fall that was destined to lay her so low she might never rise again—this time taking those she loved down with her?

  Dear God. How had it come to this?

  As the fringes of London appeared, Isabella stared out the train’s window and pondered the question. She had been foolish, certainly, in her youth. She had made an impetuous marriage in a moment of desperation, and as it was with most such marriages, she’d been left to rue the day.

  But prideful? She prayed not. She had tried to step cautiously, and after Richard’s death, to choose wisely and work hard. To think about those people who now depended on her, rather than those on whom she’d once depended. Her father. Her stepmother. Richard, so very briefly.

  And somehow, she had managed.

  But as the cramped and malodorous third-class carriage went clackity-clacking back into King’s Cross Station, Isabella was seized by the fearful certainty that she was no longer managing; that she had just run out of options. Almost nauseous with dread now, she drew her landlord’s last missive from her bag and, to further torture herself, reread it for about the twentieth time. No, this time, he would not be forestalled. The licentious Lord Hepplewood had been her very last hope.

  And yes, she had known precisely what he was. A wastrel and a womanizer. Lord Hepplewood was infamous in certain circles.

  Yet she had gone to take the job anyway, for such was her desperation.

  The train ground slowly to a halt beneath the vaulted roof in a steaming clatter, porters darting along the platforms to throw open the doors to the first-class compartments. The man on the long bench beside Isabella—a cobbler from Newcastle—rose before her and elbowed open the door himself. From the bench behind her, someone hefted a squawking hen in a wicker cage over Isabella’s head. A boy with a knobby burlap sack that smelled of damp earth and parsnips pushed past.

  The odor made Isabella want suddenly to wretch. Settling a hand over her stomach, she hung back until everyone else had clambered out and onto the platform. Then she stood and hefted down her valise, wondering if she could spare enough of Lord Hepplewood’s leftover fare money to hire a conveyance to haul her trunks back down to Munster Lane.

  She was still standing on the platform, pawing through her reticule to count her coins, when she felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. A shadow drifted past—uneasily near—and when she looked up it was to see her aunt, Lady Meredith, studying her from beneath the brim of a hat perched at a jaunty angle atop a pile of unnaturally pale curls.

  Isabella bit back a quiet curse and tried to smile.

  “Isabella, my dear.” Lady Meredith touched a bit of darning on Isabella’s sleeve with feigned concern. “Good heavens, child. You look a disheveled fright.”

  Isabella dropped her hand, sending her reticule swinging from the cord on her elbow. “My lady,” she murmured, bobbing the stiffest of curtsies. “How do you do?”

  “Better than you, I fear,” declared her aunt. “Indeed, it troubles me to see those dark smudges beneath your eyes. Isabella, are you losing weight again?”

  “I don’t think so,” Isabella lied, noting a little bitterly that Lady Meredith did not look in the least troubled. “Please, ma’am, don’t miss your train on my account.”

  Her aunt gave a dismissive wave. “We’ve plenty of time,” she said. “What of yourself? Are you departing? Or arriving?”

  “Arriving,” she said, praying her aunt did not ask for details.

  But Lady Meredith had begun to glance up and down the platform. “You will wish, of course, to pay your respects to your cousin Everett,” she said a little stiffly.

  Isabella felt a cold chill settle over her. “I don’t see him.”

  “He went back to fetch my portmanteau.” Her aunt flashed a self-satisfied smile. “We are just on our way down to Thornhill. As I’m sure you know, the manor house is so very cozy this time of year.”

  “It’s lovely, yes,” said Isabella.

  But there wasn’t a corner of England one could charitably call cozy at this time of year, and they both knew it. Cousin Everett, however, was now Lord Tafford of Thornhill—Isabella’s father’s former seat—and Lady Meredith loved to wield that fact like a weapon.

  As to her cousin, he simply loved to wield control—over anyone smaller and weaker than himself.

  Isabella was not weaker.

  And once upon a time, she had proven it—but at a terrible cost.

  Lady Meredith had never forgiven her. “I wish you’d had time to return my letters, Isabella,” she said, tugging absently at her gloves as if to neaten them. “I have been thinking how desperately you must miss the old family pile.”

  “I do miss it,” Isabella admitted, for what was the point in denying it?

  But her aunt’s face held no real sympathy. “I could lie, Isabella, and say I pity you, but I think you know that I do not,” she said with some asperity. “This is what comes of thinking too well of oneself. Still, I hope no one has ever called me unforgiving
or unchristian. Perhaps I might ask Everett to have you and the children down to Thornhill for a day or two, if you would find it a comfort?”

  “To Thornhill?” Isabella echoed. “With Everett?”

  “Yes, he still speaks of you—and lately of Jemima, too. We saw her in the park last week. What a beauty the child is becoming! Perhaps I might agree to bring her out, too, when the time comes.”

  “Bring . . . Jemima out?” The chill became like a knife in Isabella’s heart.

  “Oh, pray do not thank me yet!” cautioned her aunt, throwing up a limp hand. “I must ponder it. But I will have Everett bring the three of you for a visit.”

  “Thank you,” Isabella managed, “but the girls have school.”

  Her aunt wrinkled her nose. “Is that what you call it?” she said, dropping her voice to an admonishing whisper. “Really, Isabella, I cannot think it seemly that the late Lord Tafford’s daughter—or even his stepdaughter—should be reduced to rubbing elbows with charity waifs. Everett, I do not mind to tell you, is appalled. And before you turn up your nose at that, kindly recall your father appointed him trustee.”

  “A moot point, I imagine,” said Isabella dryly, “since Papa had nothing left to entrust—nothing that was not entailed to the estate for Everett. Moreover, the Bolton School is not a charity. One pays according to one’s means, and they take only the brightest children in Kensington.”

  “Along with the spawn of every second-rate actor and starving artist in a two-mile radius,” her aunt countered. “Oh, Isabella! It pains me to think how unnecessary all this is!”

  “I thank you, Aunt, for your concern, but—”

  “Oh, never mind that, here is Everett now.” Her aunt brightened. “And he has found Viscount Aberthwood. They have become great friends, you know, so he’s going down to Thornhill with us.”

  The gentlemen drew up, both attired in the height of fashion. The viscount looked younger than Everett’s twenty-seven years, but otherwise the pair appeared to be peas in an aristocratic pod. Her cousin had managed to shoehorn himself into the highest echelons of society, it seemed.

  “Bella, old thing,” Everett oozed, bowing over her hand. “Aberthwood, do you know Mrs. Aldridge?”

  “Your cousin, isn’t she, Tafford?” The gentleman looked Isabella up and down, as if taking in her plain gray coat and worn boots before finally acquiescing to lift his hat a fraction. “How do you do, ma’am?”

  “Quite well, thank you.”

  Just then, a porter pushed out Isabella’s trunks and looked at her enquiringly. “Out to the curb, miss?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” said Isabella. “And might you help me hire a cart of some sort?”

  Lady Meredith tossed her hand dismissively. “Oh, just run back, Everett, and catch our coachman,” she ordered. “Brooks has nothing better to do. He can take Isabella and her trunks down to Fulham.”

  It was on the tip of Isabella’s tongue to refuse and suggest her aunt go to the devil with Cousin Everett riding on her coattails, but she wisely bit back the words. She had already consigned the vile Lord Hepplewood to hell, and while she had no wish to be further beholden to her aunt, what was left of Hepplewood’s first-class train fare would pay for several days’ worth of heat. Assuming they weren’t turned out before the coal-monger came round.

  So she accepted Lady Meredith’s charity and allowed Everett to escort her from the station and out onto the street, though she refused to take his arm.

  On the curb beyond the crowd, however, he stopped and turned with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

  “Isabella.” He lifted his hand and set his fingers to her cheek for the briefest instant. “Oh, my dear girl, how you do try my patience.”

  “I am not trying anything, Everett,” she said wearily. “Do not start with me.”

  Something ugly twisted his almost effeminately handsome face. “Come, Bella, we both know how this ends,” he replied. “Look at yourself. Look what you’ve been reduced to. Think what your father would say. Think of the girls. Come home to Thornhill. You have only to say yes.”

  But Isabella was thinking of the girls. “Everett, I’ve already said no,” she reminded him, “repeatedly. And if you really gave a tuppence about the children, you wouldn’t wait for me to marry you. You would do something to help them.”

  “What, and sacrifice that ace I’ve been keeping up my sleeve all these years?” He laughed. “Look, Bella, you aren’t getting any younger. And I’m not getting any more patient.”

  “Then we’ve reached an impasse, it would seem,” she said calmly. “Look, there is Brooks.”

  “So it is.”

  Fury darkened his eyes, but he would not lower himself to berate her in front of her father’s old servants. With one last bow to Isabella, Everett snapped out orders to the coachman, then tipped his hat and calmly walked away.

  Yes, pride did indeed go before a fall, she thought as her trunks were hefted up. In fact, Isabella had begun to wonder if she had any pride left at all, for Lord Hepplewood’s advice had been ringing in her ears all the way down from Morpeth.

  Go back to London, he had suggested, and find yourself a husband or a protector.

  Well, she had already found herself one husband, and given how that had turned out, she was not apt to find another. Not unless she was willing to humble herself and accept Everett’s oft-repeated proposal—which made starving to death look like a viable option.

  And the other choice—a protector; dear God, it churned her stomach just to think of it! But the truth was, women were faced with that hard choice every day. The knowledge had wrenched at her heart during the interminable ride back to London.

  Isabella fleetingly shut her eyes and swallowed hard. She was a widow of poor but noble descent, not some dashing high-flyer. But she had a measure of grace—and beauty, she was often told. And though she had made some foolish choices, she was not stupid. Such assets might provide a way, she acknowledged, of paying the proverbial rent. Some women flourished from such arrangements; a few even grew wealthy.

  Isabella felt tears threaten again. It felt as if Lord Hepplewood had been her last honest hope—and he’d been her ninth interview since leaving Lady Petershaw’s employment. She truly had not imagined it would be so hard to find a post.

  She had believed, she supposed, that her employment with the scandalous La Séductrice would be overshadowed by the fact that she had been governess to the young Marquess of Petershaw. She had believed, too, that her father’s good name would still carry some weight. Worse, in her naiveté, she’d imagined her reckless marriage and abrupt widowhood would be long forgotten.

  But memory of her father had not long survived the grave, and Lady Petershaw was as notorious as ever. As to Richard’s death, his ghost still clung to her like a shroud, and she was not apt to ever cast it off. Between Richard’s vindictive father and her scheming aunt, one of them would surely make certain of it.

  The porter was hefting the last of her trunks onto Everett’s coach. Brooks, her father’s old coachman, was holding open the door with sadness in his eyes.

  “Fulham, is it, Miss Bella?” he gently pressed.

  “Yes, Munster Lane,” she said. “And thank you, Brooks. It is lovely to see a dear, old face.”

  “Thornhill is not the same, ma’am, without you,” he said as she climbed in.

  Her cottage in Fulham was well beyond the elegant environs of Belgravia, where her aunt and cousin lived, and so small the great hall at Thornhill could have swallowed it. But it was her home now—for as long as she could pay the rent, which was already three months behind.

  As was the butcher’s bill, the greengrocer’s bill, and every other account Isabella owed. Jemima’s shoes were worn nearly paper thin. Georgina was in Jemima’s hand-me-downs. Mrs. Barbour hadn’t been paid in months, though the woman never whispered a word of complaint. But the rent—dear heaven, to lose the very roof over their heads? How would they survive?

  The
last time Isabella had gone to beg mercy from Mr. Greeley, her landlord, he’d stopped picking his teeth with his penknife long enough to offer her an easy payment option—one which had involved Isabella on her knees and Mr. Greeley getting his “knob polished reg’lar-like.” Following this offer of Christian charity, the man had fumbled beneath his ponderous belly with a gesture sufficient to get his point across, even to one so dim-witted as Isabella.

  A shudder ran through her at the memory, but just then, the porter circled back around.

  “That’d be the last of it, gov’ner,” he shouted at Brooks. “Off the curb, if you please.”

  On impulse, Isabella set a hand on the door. “Wait, Brooks.” She hesitated and crooked her head out. “Have you nothing pressing to do just now? Truly?”

  A smile split his warm face. “Well, you know what they do say, miss,” he said, winking at her. “Whilst the old cat’s away, the mice may play. Can I do you some service?”

  The familiar teasing in his voice was very nearly her undoing. Isabella blinked back the hot press of tears. “Will you take me round to Lady Petershaw’s first? I might be a while.”

  “I’ve all the time in the world, Miss Bella,” he said.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Marchioness of Petershaw resided in an ivory palace along the west side of Park Square, preferring, as she liked to put it, to always situate just uphill of the very best shopping.

  And shop the lady certainly did. Isabella looked about the pink withdrawing room—not to be confused with the blue or the gold withdrawing rooms—and let her gaze take in the sparkling new garniture of ormolu and magenta marble, its center clock soaring four feet off the mantelpiece. Near it sat a new ottoman of tufted pink velvet that, in the East End, might have slept a family of four in comfort.

  There were also new porcelains, new lamps, a new Axminster carpet woven of pink, cream, and burgundy, along with six pairs of sweeping, deep-rose draperies that had replaced the pale lilac ones Isabella had seen a mere month earlier.