The Earl's Mistress Read online

  Returning her gaze to the door, she neatened her gray skirts and tried not to think how much all of it must have cost.

  As usual, the marchioness kept her waiting.

  La Séductrice made it a policy to keep everyone waiting—especially her gentlemen callers. After all, my dear Mrs. Aldridge, she had often said, salivation is good for the soul, oui?

  The marchioness admired all things French—words, wine, couture, and décor—despite the fact that her father had been a cooper from Margate, and the closest her mother ever got to Paris was selling pastilles de Vichy to the well-bred drunks staggering up St. James after their clubs closed.

  But one somehow forgave the marchioness her pretense. She was rich, charming, and beautiful. And even the grande dames of society who professed to loathe her would likely have cut off their best strand of pearls just to be Lady Petershaw for one day.

  Or perhaps for one night?

  The notion made Isabella smile.

  After half an hour, the double doors opened, flung dramatically inward by a brace of identical footmen in the marchioness’s white and gold livery.

  It was at this moment that Isabella always expected a blast of tasseled trumpets and a run of red carpet flung down the center of the room. But there were no trumpets, just a litter of toy poodles, barking and nipping at Lady Petershaw’s heels as she floated across the carpet, arms outstretched in greeting.

  “My dear Mrs. Aldridge!” she declared, as if her most heartfelt wish had just been granted. “To what do I owe this inestimable pleasure?”

  Isabella had risen to make a graceful curtsy, mentally steeling herself. “My lady, I hope I did not disturb you,” she said.

  “No, for I was entertaining a gentleman who had become overconfident,” she said, eyes sparkling with humor. “A snub will remind him, perhaps, of the value of my affections. But those shadows beneath your eyes, they do disturb me.” Here, the lady laid a finger to her lips. “Ah, I recall you’ve but recently ventured north. It was not, I collect, all you might have hoped?”

  “It was not,” said Isabella, her heart sinking anew. “It was . . . frightful, really. I came straight here from King’s Cross.”

  Her frown deepening, the marchioness bade Isabella be seated and sent one of the matching footmen trotting off for tea. Then, after settling one of the poodles in her lap, she began to pry from Isabella the details of her trip to Northumbria.

  Reluctantly, Isabella supplied them—without mentioning Lord Hepplewood’s name.

  He was, in fact, just the sort of man who danced attendance on the marchioness, for despite her charm, the lady had a taste for lovers who were mad, bad, and dangerous to know—and she could drive them to an inch.

  At the age of thirteen, it was rumored, Lady Petershaw had been sold off the street by her bonbon-hawking mother to a duke reputed to be a devotee of the carnal arts. The price had been two hundred guineas and no questions asked. Lady Petershaw’s mother had hung up her wooden vendor’s tray, never to be seen again.

  It was said the wicked nobleman tutored his young mistress diligently, both in and out of the bedchamber. So pleased was the duke with his pupil’s progress that he began keeping her in a grand and increasingly public fashion, showering her with jewels and delighting in the envy of his friends, until one day he obligingly keeled over and fell off the bed from exhaustion—a victim, one might say, of his own tutelage.

  La Séductrice had gone on to a succession of wealthy protectors, throwing them off when they bored her, the legend of her sensual prowess growing by leaps and bounds, until, at the age of five-and-twenty, she became with child by the elderly Marquess of Petershaw. Or so the rumors had it.

  Whatever his reason, the widowed Petershaw married his young mistress, and together they embarked on a two-year tour of the Continent that gave birth to Lady Petershaw’s lifelong love of unrestrained shopping and Lord Petershaw’s long-awaited heir. Further, as if to forestall any protests from Petershaw’s grumbling nephews, the new marchioness came home two months’ pregnant. Thus possessed of an heir with a spare on the way, Petershaw popped off to his great reward, leaving his rich widow to return to her sensual and retail pursuits.

  The marchioness sighed dramatically. “And so, this wicked gentleman,” she said, pensively tapping her cheek, “what reason did he give for such abysmal behavior?”

  At this point in the narrative, Isabella blushed. “He merely said I did not meet his qualifications.”

  The marchioness lifted both eyebrows. “Indeed? And these rarified qualifications included what, précisément?”

  Fleetingly, Isabella hesitated. “I gather he wished me to be a little more . . . more . . .”

  “Out with it,” she ordered.

  Isabella sighed. “Ugly?” she suggested. “Old? Wart-riddled?”

  But the marchioness had begun to laugh. “Ah, now we reach the truth of the matter!” she said. “His wife’s doing, depend on it.”

  “He is a widower,” Isabella blurted.

  “Indeed?” The finely arched brows elevated again. “And what is this paragon of restraint’s name, I wonder?”

  “I should rather not say, ma’am.”

  “Then I commend your discretion,” the marchioness said, nodding sagely. “It is a woman’s most valuable asset. Still, did I not always say, my dear Mrs. Aldridge, that it would eventually come to this? You are too exotic—and far too beautiful—to make a suitable governess.”

  She had said it, but in the gentlest, most roundabout of ways. Still, Isabella was not a fool. She had grasped at once just what the marchioness was warning her of—then put it from her mind.

  La Séductrice was something to be envied and perhaps even feared by other women, yes. But wasn’t the impoverished, overeducated, and painfully naive daughter of a rural baron another thing altogether?

  Apparently not.

  Her face a mask of sympathy, Lady Petershaw was still studying Isabella across the tea tray, which Isabella had not even noticed being brought in.

  “My dear girl,” said the marchioness solemnly, “you have no future in this career. Trust me when I say that men will always want from you something else entirely. It is both your gift, you see, and your curse.”

  “But you hired me,” Isabella countered. “Was I not an excellent governess?”

  “Exemplary,” the marchioness agreed, grinning. “But La Séductrice fears no competition.”

  Isabella’s eyes must have widened, for the marchioness burst into laughter again.

  “Oh, my dear Mrs. Aldridge!” she said. “Do you think I don’t know what they call me? I hired you because I wished the very best for my boys. And in time, yes, you might find another such employer. But time, perhaps, is not on your side?”

  Isabella caught her lip between her teeth. “I never dreamt it would be so hard to secure another post,” she murmured, dropping her head.

  “And your straits, I fear, are fast becoming dire,” said the marchioness matter-of-factly. “You have your sisters to care for, yes? And children are expensive. Indeed, coal and bread and rent are expensive. I am not so far removed from my humble origins, Mrs. Aldridge, that I do not comprehend this. How may I help?”

  Isabella lifted her gaze from her lap. “It is so difficult to ask,” she said quietly.

  “May I make you a loan?” suggested the marchioness. “It would be my honor to do so.”

  Isabella licked her lips uneasily. She had almost expected the offer—and she was terribly tempted. Not for herself but for the children.

  “Thank you for such kindness,” she finally said. “But in the long run, what would it solve? Georgina is but six, and Jemima twelve. If I cannot find gainful employment, you’ll be making me a lifetime of loans.”

  The marchioness frowned. “Yes, I understand,” she grumbled, “but what was Lord Tafford thinking to leave the three of you impoverished?”

  Isabella gave a weary shrug. “Father never could grasp accounts,” she murmured. “I suppo
se he believed Cousin Everett would do the right thing. Or that the girls’ maternal uncle would—but Sir Charlton has always been a coldhearted miser. Moreover, so far as I go, most people would say it was my husband’s duty to provide for me, not my father’s.”

  “Bah, a penniless poet?” said Lady Petershaw. “A younger son cut off by his father, only to drink himself to death in despair? Richard Aldridge, if you’ll pardon my saying, was a romantic fribble who possessed not an ounce of grit.”

  But he had possessed a head full of thick brown curls, Isabella recalled, along with brilliant brown eyes and the face of an angel. At first he’d been utterly glittering; filled with life and joy and an excitement she’d found infectious. He’d also been able to spout pure poetry—his own words, not someone else’s.

  In short, Richard Aldridge had been in love with life. He had only imagined himself in love with Isabella, declaring himself eternally smitten as he’d tripped off sonnets and odes in praise of her beauty. And that beauty had been her undoing.

  After their impetuous wedding, Richard’s father, the hardfisted Earl of Fenster, had not relented, as Richard had glibly insisted he would. Instead, he cut them off without a farthing. His son had been ordered to marry money, and an alliance with a pretty little piece of rural gentry was unacceptable.

  Richard, Lord Fenster declared, had always been a dreamer and a fribble, and the earl had decided that life must teach the fool what the father, apparently, could not.

  Life had taught Richard quickly. He’d fallen to pieces before Isabella’s eyes, slipping into a lethargy so deep he could bestir himself only to drink.

  Isabella had had a little money—a very little, by Richard’s definition—provided by her maternal grandfather to serve as her dowry, and it had been sent out of guilt, she was sure, for her mother had long been estranged from her family. But that small sum had scarcely covered Richard’s existing debts.

  Nearly insolvent, they had returned to Thornhill to beg her father’s charity. And when Richard died there before the year was out, Lord Fenster was driven by grief and guilt to lay the blame at Isabella’s door; to claim to all who would listen that she’d poured the spirits down Richard’s throat. Or worse, married him for his money, then simply poisoned him to escape a life of poverty.

  Lord Tafford’s solicitor had recommended a suit for defamation, and Fenster’s family had finally managed to hush him up. It had been a tremendous relief. The cost of a suit had been beyond Lord Tafford’s means, for he had honorably paid the rest of Richard’s bills—yet another drain on the estate’s modest coffers.

  When the scandal was over, Isabella’s name was badly tarnished. Indeed, it was tarnished still.

  She lifted a bleak gaze to Lady Petershaw’s. “I made a terrible mistake,” she said quietly, “in marrying young. I was barely seventeen, ma’am, and the worst sort of country mouse.”

  The marchioness shrugged. “And what good, in any case, is a man without money or grit—or, truth be told, stamina,” she said, flashing a sly smile. “I fear there is nothing else for it, my dear Mrs. Aldridge. You must find a man with a firm hand and a fat purse, and remarry.”

  Isabella sucked in her breath. “Remarry?” she said. “Good Lord! Whom?”

  “Well, not that vile cousin of yours,” declared the marchioness. “You would not allow desperation to drive you to that, my dear, would you? Pray reassure me.”

  “But you hardly know him,” said Isabella.

  The marchioness fell oddly silent for a moment. “My dear, I can only say that the circles in which I travel give me insight, oftentimes, into the . . . er, moral inclinations of certain men,” she said. “I fear your cousin is rumored to possess tastes which render him unfit to—”

  Isabella threw up a hand. “Ma’am, you need say no more,” she said quietly. “I am painfully aware of Everett’s predilections, having shared his roof during my come-out.”

  “Ah, I see,” the marchioness said, carefully folding her hands over the poodle. “I feared, my dear Mrs. Aldridge, you mightn’t understand the depths of his depravity.”

  “I’m not that naive,” said Isabella darkly. “I wouldn’t allow the ugliest scullery maid to live under my cousin’s hand, let alone a pretty child like Jemima or Georgina. But Lady Petershaw, I’ve no intention of marrying again.”

  The marchioness opened her hands expansively. “But I cannot see, my dear Mrs. Aldridge, as you’ve much choice.”

  “Very little, it’s true.” Isabella looked at the floor. “But you must know there were rumors I had a hand in Richard’s death.”

  “Bah!” The marchioness dropped her hands. “Entirely disproven. No, outright lies. I rooted them out before employing you.”

  “What if Lord Fenster should stir them up again?” said Isabella quietly. “The few gentlemen who remember me do look at me a little strangely, ma’am, when they pass me on the street.”

  “It has been a long time,” the marchioness countered.

  “But has it been long enough?” Isabella jerked her gaze up. “Tell me honestly, Lady Petershaw. Has it? What man of wealth would take to wife an impoverished widow however faintly blackened by rumor? Particularly when she has two children in tow? I cannot even secure a governess’s post. How will I make a decent marriage?”

  “Well, some gentleman might—”

  “But will that gentleman be sane?” Isabella interjected stridently. “Will he be sober and decent—and will he remain that way? Will he be kind to my sisters? And will he leave me provided for, or will I be doing this again in five years’ time? No, Lady Petershaw, I will never trust another man to look after me. I won’t. A husband—oh, a husband would own me. You know as well as I what the law says.”

  Lady Petershaw fell quiet for a moment. “I never did take you, Mrs. Aldridge, for a fool,” she finally said. “Yes, it is far better to use men for what they can give you than to surrender yourself to their use permanently.”

  “I have often marveled you married Petershaw at all,” Isabella confessed.

  “Two barren wives will make a nobleman shockingly eager,” said the lady dryly. “And I was not such a fool, my dear, as to enter that union without a good solicitor and an ironclad understanding. You, however . . . alas, you simply have no leverage. You’ve only your looks, which, while prodigious, will get a decent woman only so far.”

  “But what if I were not so decent?” Isabella blurted the words, her gaze fixed upon the dogs drowsing at their feet. “What if I did not marry but instead struck . . . a sort of bargain?”

  “A bargain?” Curiosity laced the marchioness’s voice.

  Isabella forced her gaze up; forced herself to own her next words.

  “What if I were a courtesan, Lady Petershaw?” she asked, her voice surprisingly strong. “No, more of a mistress—one of those beautiful women that rich men keep tucked quietly aside for their pleasure? You . . . why, you know people who live that life—and people who broker such arrangements. Don’t you?”

  “Well . . . yes.” For once, Lady Petershaw looked nonplused. “But what is the difference, my dear, in that life and the one your Northumbrian gentleman just offered you?”

  “He threatened to seduce his governess.” . . . and nearly got away with it, too, she silently added. “No, I’m talking about a . . . a private understanding—one in which I have some say—with a discreet gentleman, away from prying eyes. Many men purchase country cottages for their mistresses, do they not?”

  “Yes, commonly.” Lady Petershaw’s eyes were still round with disbelief. “But these are not the high-flyers of Town who are captured like prizes by the highest bidder—or, in some cases, the most skilled lover. Most gentlemen merely want beauty, companionship, and sexual pleasure, discreetly provided. And for that, yes, they prefer widows or fallen ladies who have been forced to the fringes of society.”

  “Lady Petershaw, I fear you just described me,” Isabella pointed out. “I have been reduced to working for my crust and keeping my s
isters in a farm cottage in Fulham, where our nearest neighbor is a pigsty. I dress them in hand-me-downs, and they must walk two miles to a—yes, to a charity school. We are barely hanging on to the fringe.”

  This last was said, to Isabella’s shame, a little tearfully. But Lady Petershaw did her the kindness of ignoring it and merely said, “Have you considered how this might affect the children?”

  Isabella sniffed. “It will do them less harm than starvation, I daresay,” she replied bitterly. “But yes, privacy is my paramount consideration. I must avoid exposure—if I can.”

  “Ordinarily when a lady finds herself in this position, a less reputable friend—myself, for example—lets it discreetly be known that the lady has fallen upon difficulties and wishes to make the acquaintance of a generous protector. If the lady is beautiful and flirtatious, it never fails to work. But it also never fails to tarnish the lady’s reputation.”

  “Precisely why I must be away from London,” said Isabella, who’d had a long train journey during which to consider it. “I wish for a brokered arrangement. With an unmarried man, or a man whose wife will not grieve should she suspect. But yes, a rich, even-tempered widower, ideally.”

  “Oh, you will not be able to choose so nicely,” the marchioness warned in a dark tone. “There are people who make such arrangements for gentlemen—introductions, they are politely called—and yes, they can be lucrative in the long term. But a courtesan must prove her mettle, my dear. It is not a career for the faint of heart.”

  In this, at least, Isabella felt confident. “I am not faint of heart,” she said. “I have survived much these past eight years. Now I wish to make an alliance with a wealthy—no, a rich—man. Disgustingly rich.”

  “Do you, indeed?” The marchioness smiled.

  “Indeed,” said Isabella more determinedly. “Actually, he needn’t even be a gentleman. A banker or merchant or a sea captain will do nicely. And I wish to be away from London. And to begin immediately. My trunks are downstairs, already loaded onto Lady Meredith’s carriage.”