His Mistress by Morning
Read His Mistress by Morning Online
Authors: Elizabeth Boyle
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
LIZABETH
B
OYLE
HIS MISTRESS BY MORNING
To Nicholas,
for his boundless imagination
and unending curiosity.
And for saying one night,
“Mommy, what would you wish for
if you had a magic ring?’’
and thereby inspiring this book.
To you, Peanut,
this story is lovingly dedicated.
If one were going to define what gave a family…
When Charlotte awoke the next morning, she could feel the…
His mistress?
“This is not my life, this is not my life,”…
The horses set out smartly and quickly, and Charlotte caught…
Charlotte glanced up to find a short, stubby man in…
Oh, how can this be? Charlotte worried as they ran…
Sitting in the Opera House and giving into fantasies spun…
If she had ever wondered why women like Corinna Fornett…
Quince tried time and time again over the next fortnight…
“Oh, ma’am, I’m so glad yer home,” Prudence gasped. “She’s…
Sebastian didn’t visit Charlotte that night. Or the next. By…
Sebastian Marlowe, Viscount Trent, woke up oddly disconcerted, as if…
Sebastian had, since the first moment he’d approached his sisters,…
“There you are!” rose the deep, menacing greeting from behind…
You’re the one in love with him, after all.
Charlotte woke up the morning of Lady Routledge’s soirée feeling…
While Sebastian had promised Charlotte the night of Lady Routledge’s…
London
May 9, 1810
An Ordinary Wednesday, or at Least One Presumes So
I
f one were going to define what gave a family that air of prestige amongst their peers, set them apart in the bustling
ton,
first and foremost you would list those admirable qualities of respectability, social standing, and, most importantly, wealth.
Of course none of those things described the Earl of Walbrook or any of his five children—with the possible exception of the earl’s eldest son and heir, Sebastian Marlowe, Viscount Trent.
But we’ll get to him in a moment.
Luckily for the Marlowes, they rarely noticed their pariah status in Society. Snippy mentions in gossip columns were of no interest to them. And if they had a host of detractors, they had one very enthusiastic admirer.
Miss Charlotte Wilmont. She thought them the most glorious family in London.
Why, their cluttered house on Berkeley Square, which housed the odd objects that the earl sent home from his travels, the leftover stage sets and costumes from the countess’s numerous private theatrical productions, Griffin’s scientific experiments, Cordelia’s Roman treasures, and Hermione and Viola’s collections of neatly clipped fashion plates from
The Ladies Fashionable Cabinet,
was more odd museum than house, but it felt like home to Charlotte.
Even now, standing in the middle of the foyer, awaiting her best friend, Lady Hermione, and dreading the terrible news she had to tell her, Charlotte couldn’t help but feel a sense that she, plain and ordinary Miss Wilmont, belonged
here
.
She could just imagine what her mother, Lady Wilmont, or Cousin Finella, with whom they lived, would say about that. Especially when faced with the ornately carved chest that stood front and center in the entryway, decorated as it was with a rather large male fertility statue standing tall and erect atop it.
The ebony phallus would have been banished to the dustbin at Cousin Finella’s. Feeling a little bit guilty for even casting a curious glance in its direction, Charlotte forced her gaze over to the silver salver beside it, piled up as it was with mail and notes and calling cards for the family.
Envy tugged at her heart over the sight of such a friendly pile—for no one invited her to soirées and parties, called upon her cantankerous mother (for good reason), or sent lovingly penned letters expressing whatever it was one put into such tidings.
Surely Charlotte didn’t know. No one had ever sent her a letter.
And atop it all sat the most coveted missive of all—an invitation to Lady Routledge’s soirée.
Though Hermione had spent the last month expressing dread over having to attend the upcoming event, Charlotte knew her dear friend would have been positively distraught not to be invited. For Lady Routledge’s annual evening had launched any number of young ladies from veritable obscurity onto that very coveted pedestal, the most sought after title a girl could attain: that of
Original
.
But to do that took a lady of some talent—able to sing, perhaps a dab hand on a pianoforte, or possess the composure to give a stirring and dramatic reading. Not that such a lack of proficiency didn’t stop any number of hopefuls from getting up (or more to the point, being prodded up by their anxious mothers) and giving a rather,
ahem,
memorable performance.
Having had only lessons from Cousin Finella on the pianoforte, and neither an elocution or singing lesson, Charlotte would rather die than get up before the assembled ladies and lords, gossips and dandies, and make a cake of herself. So perhaps it was a good thing that society had forgotten Sir Nestor Wilmont’s spinster daughter.
She was about to turn away from the overladen salver when a note peeking out from beneath the stack caught her attention, a tiding written in a neat feminine hand and addressed to
The Right Hon. the Viscount Trent
.
Sebastian,
Charlotte sighed. Hermione’s older brother and the heir to the Walbrook earldom.
Even as Charlotte rose up on her tiptoes and tried to spy some sort of indication who this missive was from (not that she couldn’t make a very educated guess),
the door from the back of the house swung open.
She straightened immediately, and to her horror, none other than Lord Trent himself strolled into the foyer. He was lost in thought and didn’t even notice her as she shrank into the nearby curtains.
With
his
arrival, Charlotte went into a deep blush and that tongue-tied inability to sputter out any word that could be deemed intelligible.
Oh, bother, Charlotte,
she chided herself,
say something, anything
.
What was it Hermione always said?
Truly, Charlotte, if you would but talk to him you would discover he is as dull as they come. Mother swears her real son was snatched away at birth and Sebastian left in his stead, for no child of hers could possess such a sensible nature!
A sensible nature? How could Hermione pronounce such a virtue as if it were a sin? Charlotte wondered as she peered out from the shadows of the curtains.
Certainly Sebastian’s sensibility was one of his most endearing characteristics in her estimation. He’d taken over the family accounts and properties at an early age—just after his father had departed for his South Seas adventures ten years earlier. While the viscount’s peers and friends had spent the last decade gadding about, Sebastian had kept the Marlowes afloat with careful management and a tight purse over his mother’s and sisters’ propensity for shopping.
Why, just look at what had happened to Charlotte and her mother when her own father had died! There had been no one to manage things, and as a result they lived with Cousin Finella.
And when Hermione exceeded her pin money, or one
of Griffin’s scientific experiments went awry and left half of Mayfair shaken from yet another explosion, or Viola brought home yet another stray dog, did Sebastian ever complain? Did he harangue them with lectures? Did his ire overflow into a great rage? Never. What Charlotte observed was a man who loved his family, patiently listening to their various complaints and observations and kept their scandal-prone and eccentric antics from leaving them completely beyond the pale of the
ton
.
Say something,
she told herself again. Why was it in the quiet of the night, in her narrow little bed, she could think of a thousand witty things to say to him, but when she stood before him, opportunity as golden as a shiny new guinea, those fine words scattered like ha’pennies tossed to the crowds?
Of course in the shadows of the night, her perfect Sebastian was a bit more rakish, with a pirate’s queue and a wicked gleam in his eye. And she was…well, she was dressed in blue velvet.
“Oh, Sebastian, you found me,” she’d whisper. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
(Perhaps that might not sound perfectly witty to anyone else, but to Charlotte just the notion of being able to put a sentence together in the presence of her pirate viscount sent her heart racing.)
Then he’d take her hand and draw it to his lips. “Charlotte, my dearest, loveliest Charlotte, will you, dare I?…”
She’d never considered what might happen next, but it certainly wasn’t dull or prudent.
And right now, with him just a step away, her imagination raced and she was quickly turning into a quivering bundle of nerves.
Never mind that all he was doing was standing before the salver, sorting through the notes, tossing aside those for his mother and giving scant regard to the cards and other missives directed to him.
It was a good thing he hadn’t noticed her, for it was all Charlotte could do to breathe as she looked at him, standing there in all his dashing glory. Dressed to the nines, he wore a dark green jacket, buff trousers, and shining black boots. His cravat, of the whitest white and perfectly tied, marked him as a flawless gentleman.
But in that same second, a cold dash of reason hit her as she realized where he must be going—for how could she have not noticed the bouquet of orange blossoms he’d deposited beside the salver?
That could mean only one thing: He was on his way to visit Miss Lavinia Burke.
Charlotte cringed. Lavinia Burke. It could only be pronounced with the same disdainful tone and inflection with which one said “bubonic plague” or “Napoleon Bonaparte.”
Not that the rest of London found her so. Miss Burke was this Season’s perfect debutante, and every mention of her (at least to Charlotte) held a particular sting.
For the girl was everything Charlotte was not.
Rich. Fashionable. Witty. Youthful. And most loathsome of all, extremely pretty.
Since being proclaimed an Original by no less than three reliable sources (the
Morning Post,
Lady Routledge, and, of course, the impeccable and fastidious Brummell), the popular heiress was now the most sought after young lady in London.
Charlotte couldn’t think of Miss Burke without some highly uncharitable notion springing to mind, but today,
of all days, she saw not only the gaping chasm between herself and the other girl, but the impossibility of her own most closely held dream.
“Oh, gracious heavens, Charlotte,” Lady Hermione Marlowe called out as she flew down the stairs, “I thought you would never arrive! Is it a huge fortune? A tremendous one? For if it is, I saw the most perfect gown yesterday at Madame Claudius’s shop that you must buy at once. She made it up for another woman, but now the lady has disappeared and I do think it will fit you perfectly. But first we must go to the park, for it is nearly three, and you know who will be riding by and I have a new pose that I am sure will catch his attention.” She struck it at once and it was vastly ridiculous, but Charlotte was still struggling to find the words to speak to Sebastian, let alone answer Hermione. Not that her friend noticed, for she continued on in her own distracted way. “Why, I daresay between your new dress and my fine stance we will make that odious Miss B—” At that moment, Hermione noticed her brother and faltered to a stop.
Sebastian gaped at her as if she had gone mad. “Whoever are you talking to, Hermione?”
“Charlotte,” she said, pointing just beside the cabinet.
Sebastian turned around, his eyes widening with surprise at the sight of her so close by. “Miss Wilson, I didn’t see you there.”
Oh, the humiliation of it.
He hadn’t been able to discern her from the draperies
and
he couldn’t even get her name correct.
Charlotte stepped forward out of the shadows, a little bit too hastily and not quite as gracefully as a lady might hope for, and she bumped into the chest.
The earl’s prized phallus teetered and tipped, then
toppled over. Charlotte caught it just in time, relieved that she hadn’t broken the smooth and solid statue, but in the next moment realizing that now she stood before Lord Trent holding a huge male…male…oh, bother, piece of anatomy.
The heat of a searing blush rose to her cheeks. “I, um, yes, well, um,” she stammered.
Hermione, nearly always poised and confident, came to her rescue, descending the stairs in record time and scooping the statue out of her hands and setting it firmly back up on the chest as if it were merely a proper Wedgwood vase.
“Sebastian, you are the most trying brother alive,” she was saying. “Her name is Wilmont. Not Wilson. Not Wilton, but Miss Charlotte Wilmont. My dear friend for these past five years, and the fact that you cannot remember her name marks you as the worst sort of ninny who ever lived.”
“My apologies,
Miss Wilmont,
” Sebastian said, bowing ever-so-slightly toward her.
Charlotte nodded, not trusting her tongue to do anything more than flap insipidly.
Hermione wasn’t done. “You should be more considerate of Charlotte. She has just come into a great fortune and will, in no time, be the toast of the town.”
Charlotte’s gaze wrenched from Sebastian to her friend, her head shaking furiously. “Oh, no, it isn’t like that.”
“Silly girl!” Hermione wound her hand around Charlotte’s arm and tugged her up to Sebastian with a great flourish of her other hand, as if she were presenting royalty to him. “Miss Wilmont’s great-aunt died and left her an immense—”
“Hermione!” Charlotte protested. “Don’t!” Oh, this was turning into a terrible nightmare. First the phallus, and now this!
The girl’s hand fluttered again, waving aside the objection, as if it were nothing more than unnecessary modesty. “Charlotte, it isn’t like everyone isn’t going to know when you turn up in society in the finest gowns, at all the best parties. Being exceedingly wealthy won’t turn you into a vulgar little chit, like some people we know.” Hermione tipped her nose and shot an accusing glance at the bouquet. “You aren’t going to call on
her
again, are you?”
Sebastian’s brow arched. “And whatever business is it of yours?”
Hermione groaned. “It is every bit my business. Miss Burke is a terrible snob and I can’t believe you would even contemplate pursuing her. If I thought for a moment you loved her, that might be a consideration, but I don’t think even you could be that dull.”
The viscount tossed the letters back atop the salver and retrieved his orange blossoms. “I am not going to have this conversation with you.”
His tone spoke of finality, one that would not brook any further interference, but Charlotte knew better than to think that Hermione would respect her brother’s authority. The Marlowes were infamously informal, and that Hermione would ignore her brother’s position as de facto head of the household was no surprise.
Luckily, Fenwick, the family’s butler, made a timely arrival with Sebastian’s hat, gloves, and coat, saving the brother and sister from a complete row. Sebastian handed the sprays of orange blossoms to Hermione as he shrugged on his coat and pulled on his gloves.
The sweet and spicy scent of oranges curled around Charlotte’s senses, and her earlier feelings of envy returned, as if carried on a zephyr.
