A Precious Jewel (5 page)

“Ah, Sir Gerald,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise. Do come in. You have been calling on Prissy?”

“I want to know who was with her last,” he said grimly.

Miss Blythe took her spectacles off. “I am afraid that is privileged information, sir,” she said.

“Then perhaps you should go upstairs and examine the bruise and swelling on her face,” he said, “and the bruise on her thigh.”

The book slid to the floor as Miss Blythe got to her feet. “Priscilla has been abused?” she said. “She has not complained to me, sir.”

“Probably because she has been too busy with her duties,” he said. “I did not even notice at first. I was too concerned with my own pleasure, I suppose. I want your assurance, ma’am, that she will never be touched by that man again.”

“You have it, sir,” she said. “I do not allow my girls to be abused. You should know that. Least of all Prissy.”

Sir Gerald’s hands clenched at his sides. “The very thought of his laying a hand on her is enough to make me want to commit murder,” he said.

“It will not happen again, Sir Gerald, I do assure you,” she said firmly. “The matter will be looked to immediately.”

“She does not have anyone else coming tonight, does she?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“I cannot bear the thought of any other man touching her, either,” he said.

Miss Blythe stooped to pick up her book and set it on a table with her spectacles.

“Are your girls bound to you by contract?” he
asked. “If Prissy wanted to leave, could she? Or is there a price you would accept?”

“My girls are free to leave whenever they wish,” Miss Blythe said. “Most of them never do wish to leave because I look after them well, sir. They are infinitely better off here than they would be on the street.”

“I know,” he said absently. “If I were to offer to take Prissy away and make her my mistress, you would set no obstacle in the way, ma’am?”

“Indeed I might,” she said, “though I have only my influence to use with her. I would wish to know that her interests would be as well protected under your care as I have tried to make them under mine. Won’t you take a seat, sir? I believe we have some business to discuss.”

Sir Gerald sat.

P
RISCILLA ENTERED THE
blue salon the following morning with some trepidation. She had just had a lengthy and painful interview with Miss Blythe, who had told her when it was over that Sir Gerald Stapleton was waiting to speak with her.

He had come to say good-bye, she thought. She wished he had not. She had begun to accustom her mind that morning to the knowledge that she would not see him again.

Surely he did not expect her to take him to her room. The rules allowed no clients in the mornings.
Miss Blythe had said nothing about a bending of the rules.

She wished that her jaw were not as black and yellow as it was or her eyes so ringed with dark shadows. She had not slept at all during the night, weary though she had been. And she had been unable to stop at least some of the tears from flowing.

“Priss?” he said, turning from the window he had been staring through and crossing the room to take her outstretched hands. “Ah, your poor face. I wish I could have stopped it happening, you know, and whatever indignity you were subjected to.”

She smiled warmly at him. “Sir Gerald,” she said. “You have come to take your leave of me, sir? How kind of you. I do hope you enjoy the summer in the country.”

“I have come to take you away from here if you will come,” he said.

She withdrew her hands from his and stared at him.

“I have leased a house,” he said. “I think you will like it. I have hired two servants and plan to hire as many more. And I have arranged for some furniture. Will you let me set you up there, Priss? Will you be my mistress?”

“Your mistress, sir?” she asked. His mistress? Only him? No others? No daily appointments encompassing three hours and involving three gentlemen? Only
him? Only Sir Gerald? He was not going away, after all? She was not to be saved from herself after all?

“I don’t like sharing you,” he said. “It is distasteful to me. I want you for myself. Will you come?”

Would she come? He wanted her for himself? He did not wish to share her? There would be only him? Only him!

“You have spoken with Miss Blythe about this?” she asked.

His grin made him look almost boyish for a moment. “She has driven a hard bargain on your behalf,” he said. “You must discuss it with her, Priss, and make known to her any changes you wish to make to the agreement. She has it all written out this morning for my signature. She will doubtless read it to you. I think you will find that it protects you from all possible disasters. In particular, you will be well provided for when I grow tir—” He ran a hand through his fair curls. “When we finally part, for whatever reason.”

When he grew tired of her. How soon would that be? A matter of weeks? But surely he would not go to the trouble of furnishing a house for her and signing an agreement with her for a matter of weeks. Months, then? Surely not years. He must be close to thirty years of age. He would wish to marry soon—if he were not married already. Her stomach jolted. She had not considered that possibility. But it was a possibility nonetheless.

She smiled warmly. “I am sure Miss Blythe would have had my best interests at heart,” she said.

“You will come, then?” he asked.

She had no choice, of course. She conceded that point without even stopping to consider further. She knew that she had no choice even though Sir Gerald would not force her to go, and Miss Blythe would certainly not do so. He had asked her to go with him, to be his mistress, and she knew herself quite powerless to resist. There was no point in going through the pretense of thinking wisely.

“I think I would like to accept, Sir Gerald,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Splendid,” he said, smiling at her. “The house will be ready for you in two days’ time. Will that suit you, Priss? I have asked Miss Blythe to release you from your other duties in the meanwhile—provided you accepted my proposition, that is.”

“Thank you,” she said. “May I see the house before it is ready, sir? Perhaps I can help to set it up.”

He scratched his chin. “I would like to have it perfect for you,” he said. “But it is to be your house, Priss. If you would like to have a hand in arranging things, then I suppose I could take you there.”

“Will you?” she asked, her eyes sparkling at him. “Today, sir?”

“Right now, if you wish,” he said. “I have no other engagements until this afternoon, and I have my curricle outside the door.”

“I shall fetch my bonnet,” she said, turning toward the door. But she turned back before opening it. “Will you mind being seen with me, sir?”

“If you are to be my mistress, Priss,” he said, “I daresay we will be seen together from time to time. I am not ashamed of you.”

She smiled and let herself out of the room. She drew several great steadying breaths before approaching the stairs. But before she reached the top, she was running up them two at a time.

She was to be Sir Gerald Stapleton’s mistress. There was to be no one else, no more clients at Miss Blythe’s. Just him.

S
IR GERALD FOLLOWED HIS NEW MISTRESS FROM
room to room in the house he had leased just that morning and watched her. She walked quickly and lightly, and she looked about her eagerly, seeing everything. Her cheeks were more flushed than usual, her eyes brighter.

“I will need heavy curtains at these windows,” she said when they came to the main bedchamber upstairs. “The sun will shine brightly in the mornings. Not that I mind being awoken early, of course, especially on a day when there is sunshine. This is a pleasant street, sir.” She stood looking out through the window. “It seems quiet.”

“I chose the neighborhood with care,” he said.

She turned and smiled warmly at him.

“This is a cozy room,” she said several minutes later, standing in the middle of the parlor downstairs and looking about her. “I like square rooms. They are
easier to arrange. And I am glad the fireplace is large. The room will be warm in winter.”

He strolled into the smaller room adjoining the parlor. “You will be able to use this room as your private sitting room if you wish, Priss,” he said.

She came to stand at his shoulder. “Oh, no,” she said. “I think I will make this into a bedchamber. It will be more convenient when I am entertaining you, will it not, just to walk through into this room rather than having to go upstairs. The rooms up there can be my private ones.”

“As you wish,” he said. “It is to be your house, Priss.”

She looked rather like a child with a new toy, he thought. Her dark curls were somewhat disheveled from her bonnet. Her face looked sparklingly pretty if one ignored the ugly bruise on her jaw.

“I have put the choosing of the furniture into the hands of one of my own servants,” he said. “If you wish to make any special requests, you had better tell me now and I will let him know.”

“But I would so love to choose everything myself,” she said. “May I, please? It is a man who is to furnish the house? Men invariably have poor taste and never think of coordinating colors and styles.” She smiled impishly at him. “Some men, anyway. I do not necessarily include present company.”

He ran one hand through his hair. “Is not a bed a bed and a sofa a sofa?” he said.

“You see?” She laughed at him. “I rest my case, sir.”

“Priss,” he said, “if you are to be my mistress, I think it would be as well to drop the ‘sir,’ don’t you? You had better call me Gerald.”

“Gerald,” she said, and smiled at him.

Before they left the house to return to Miss Blythe’s, he agreed to send her shopping the next day with Mrs. Wilson, the housekeeper he had engaged for her. He had also agreed to allow her to interview and hire the remaining two servants he wished her to have.

“If they do a poor job,” she said with a smile, “I will have only myself to blame since I will have hired them myself. Are you sure you are willing for me to have four servants, Gerald? It seems an excessive number.”

“You are my mistress, Priss,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to be able to say that I don’t know how to treat you right.”

He was glad the house was unfurnished and there was no opportunity to consummate their new relationship. She somehow looked different from the Prissy he had been calling on and bedding for all of two months. She looked prettier and daintier and more childlike.

She looked like more of a person. He had only ever seen her engaged in her profession. He had not expected that she would be interested in the house and its furnishings or in its staffing. He had expected that
she would be interested only in the performance of her duties and the earning of her salary.

He knew nothing whatsoever about her, he realized suddenly. Except her body, of course. He knew that quite intimately—and liked what he knew.

He did not want to know her as a person. He would be glad when she was in residence and he could visit her, as he had at Kit’s, purely in order to satisfy his appetites. Except that he would no longer have to make an appointment and his visits would no longer be limited to one hour.

She was his. His personal possession. He liked the thought despite all his earlier reluctance to keeping a mistress.

But he was glad he could not make love to her that day. She was out of her milieu and he was a little uncomfortable with her. Besides, there was that bruise and the reminder it gave him that she had been regularly possessed by many other men apart from himself. It was a knowledge that he had carefully suppressed until the night before when he had seen the physical evidence.

He did not like the thought.

“I do like it, Gerald,” she said as she tied the strings of her bonnet in the hall and he picked up his hat and cane. “Thank you and for the offer you made me this morning. I will try my very best to please you for as long as you choose to employ me.”

“You always have pleased me, Priss,” he said. “You are good.”

“Are you not leaving town after all?” she asked.

“Not just yet,” he said. “I’ll go into the country for the summer. But you will be able to stay here, Priss. I have leased the house for a year.”

She smiled at him and preceded him through the door.

T
HE
E
ARL OF
S
EVERN
was laughing—again. He had seemed to do nothing but laugh since his return to town, Sir Gerald thought.

“So you have set her up in a love nest, Ger,” the earl said. “She must be something, this Prissy of yours. You must take me to meet her before I return to the country next week. Will you?”

“I suppose I could arrange that,” Sir Gerald said. “But I have told her it is her house, Miles. I would have to have her consent first.”

“Of course,” the earl said. “Your timing was poor, though, Ger. I was going to come to Kit’s with you the next time you went. Who is there these days? Is Rosemary still with Kit?”

“She left ages ago,” Sir Gerald said.

“Ah,” the earl said. “An interesting girl, Rosemary. I suppose I shall remain celibate and do honor to this mourning.” He looked down at his black clothes rather ruefully.