His Mistress by Morning (12 page)

And despite Quince’s promise that she would eventually gain Lottie’s memories, she needed them sooner rather than later. Or at least before Sebastian arrived.

“Lottie, I don’t like to nag,” Finella was saying from the depths of the closet.

Charlotte sighed and glanced in that direction. Quince had one thing right: There were some things that just couldn’t be shifted.

Finella poked her head out the door. “I want you to pay special attention to the earl tonight.”

“The earl?” Charlotte replied.

“Yes, the earl. Rockhurst.” Finella eyed the dirty hem of Charlotte’s gown again and shook her head. “You invited him to your box tonight, and it won’t do if you spend the night flirting with him just to get Trent into some jealous rage.”

She turned back inside the closet, so Charlotte called after her, “That works?”

Apparently her innocent question didn’t set well with the lady, for there was a desperate groan from inside. “Lottie, you are incorrigible. You know as well as I, there isn’t anything wrong with getting a man worked up a bit afore he comes to call.” Finella returned carrying a large bundle wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string. “There were times when I fancied it a bit rough like that,” she said with her own little dreamy smile. Then she sighed and went to a drawer, fetched a pair of scissors, and clipped the strings. She turned to Charlotte, wagging the scissors at her. “But it won’t do to treat Rockhurst so shabbily. Not when he’s been so attentive of late. You are going to have to send Trent packing sooner or later—sooner, I pray—and it is better to have your next favorite ready and happily willing, rather than leave yourself out there with no protection.” She stowed the scissors back in the drawer and started to unwrap the mysterious bundle.

Protection
. That word tolled in Charlotte’s ears like a funeral bell. “Lyman,” she whispered.

“Lyman!” Finella gasped, the paper and tangle of strings forgotten. “Don’t tell me that sanctimonious prig has been bothering you again?”

Charlotte turned toward the mirror, tucking a stray strand of her hair over the scrape. She could imagine the scene Finella would raise if she knew the entire story. She certainly couldn’t tell her cousin that she’d gone home to Mayfair, since it really wasn’t her home anymore. Besides, she had a feeling that such a tale would give the lady another lament to lie at her feet, like an eager bricklayer. “He drove past me when I was—”

“You stay away from him,” Finella said, with nothing
left to shake but her finger. “Stay well out of his path. Besides, you’ll never have to take the likes of him to your bed, not as long as you have your looks and this…” She held up a gown for Charlotte’s examination.

“Oh, my,” she whispered, her gaze feasting on the gorgeous blue velvet evening dress. With cut work in the front of the low bodice, and slashing in the short sleeves, it was the most elegant creation she’d ever beheld…let alone worn.

Finella smiled, her pique over Charlotte’s disappearance and reluctance as to Rockhurst’s attentions completely forgotten. “I think Madame Claudius outdid herself on this one. I picked it up for you this afternoon, as well as the hat.” She handed the dress to Charlotte, then went back into the closet to return with a narrow blue silk hat, trimmed around the edges and finished with three great plumes that fell saucily from one side.

“I won’t lose you to the likes of Lyman,” Finella continued. “But Rockhurst—” She made a purring noise that sounded as satisfied as the Lottie-on-the-wall looked. “Now he would treat you well. And be a very good lover. Can last all night. And he’s not about to get up and take his leave when he’s spent his share, if you know what I mean. Likes to do it in the French fashion as well. At least that is what Mrs. Vache told Madame Claudius.”

Thankfully, Finella pulled the blue gown over Charlotte’s head at that moment, for she thought her cheeks were now as red as her cousin’s dress.

French lovemaking?
Oh, dear heavens! She hadn’t the vaguest notion of English relations, let alone exploring Continental inclinations.

“And Monsieur Detchant told Madame Claudius, oh, you know him, that tailor down across from Madame
Claudius’s, well, monsieur tells her that Lord Rockhurst does not need a bit of padding in his breeches. That he’s like a stallion.” Finella made that hungry, purring noise again.

“Please!” Charlotte protested, covering her ears lest Finella go into further details. “Enough about the earl.” Gads, how was she ever going to look at the man, let alone sit next to him through an entire opera knowing that he was…well, um, sufficiently male.

Having seen Lord Trent in his natural state had been enough. If Rockhurst was more generously endowed, she had to think the earl had more in common with his unpredictable Boreas than just temperament.

“Oh, don’t be so missish,” Finella cackled. “I know you think Lord Trent is the finest lover in all of creation, and Lord knows, you look well satisfied most days, but he’s up the River Tick.”

“Not quite,” Charlotte told her. “He won a tidy sum at the races today.” Even as she said it, she realized she’d stepped into another quagmire with her cousin.

The lady’s hands went back to her hips. “The races? That certainly explains your hemline! But Lottie, you promised! No more gambling. Do you know how many ladies in our delicate situation have been ruined by dice and horses?”

“Or one too many hands of
vingt-et-un
?” Charlotte replied, thinking of the little
on dit
Sebastian had shared earlier.

Finella’s jaw worked back and forth, and she eyed Charlotte as if trying to determine just how much she knew…and it seemed that the lady didn’t want to risk a comparison of recent losses. After a few minutes of fuss
ing with Charlotte’s hair, she asked ever-so-nonchalantly, “Did you win?”

Charlotte nodded. “Eight hundred pounds.”

This brought a wide grin to her cousin’s face. “Well, I suppose that makes up for what we haven’t been getting from Trent.” And while Charlotte’s bounty seemed to take some of the wind from Finella’s determined sails, the lady soon returned to her favorite subject.

“My dear girl, it’s well enough to take a lover for the pure entertainment of it, but you’ve been with Trent for nearly a year and your income is dwindling. You need another Chesam, a man who’ll leave you a tidy annuity and another house.” Finella plopped the hat on her head, the plumes undulating with seductive charm. “Preferably one in the country.”

Charlotte discovered that Mrs. Lottie Townsend did little in moderation. The finest gowns, the fanciest carriage, and a splendid box at the opera.

A subscription, she had learned from Finella, left to her by old Chesam.

Charlotte wasn’t too sure she wanted to remember
every
aspect of Lottie’s life—recalling nights spent with Sebastian were one thing, but two years with an aging duke hardly sounded entertaining or worth reminiscing over.

She settled into her seat and started looking through her reticule for the glasses she’d seen Finella drop inside.

“Mrs. Townsend, how nice to see you this evening,” came the greeting over the low wall that separated her from the next box.

Charlotte glanced up and was stunned to find herself being greeted by Lord Pilsley.

Her mother’s husband.

“Lord Pilsley,” she managed, craning her neck to see who else was with the viscount.

“A lovely gown you have on tonight,” the old man was saying. “But then you always are a fair sight to behold.” The man lurched forward, as if prodded from behind, and indeed he had been. It wasn’t until he sat down in his seat, smiling apologetically at her, that Charlotte saw the woman beside him.

Her mother.

She opened her mouth to greet her, looking for recognition, but all she received from Lady Pilsley was the arched and furious look that Charlotte knew from experience was a harbinger of an angry outburst. Nose in the air, and with another poke into her husband’s ribs with her fan, Aurora made a very obvious point of shifting herself away from Charlotte’s box.

Shunned! By her own mother! Charlotte sat back and tried to blink away the growing moisture in her eyes. However had this come about? Certainly her mother had never been a fine example of maternal affection, but Charlotte had always supposed that her own shortcomings had been the cause of the lady’s coldness toward her only child.

There was no time to puzzle this mystery further, for a deep male chuckle from the curtain behind her interrupted her thoughts.

She turned to find Rockhurst standing there, looking ever the dashing Corinthian.

Her gaze swept for an alarming second down past his waistcoat to his taut black pantaloons.
Like a stallion
.

Leave it to Finella to uncover the truth of the matter, as it were.

However, the evidence of Rockhurst’s endowment only alarmed Charlotte rather than enticed her, contrary to Finella’s assurances that such a thing was desirable.

She yanked her gaze up at the man himself and tried to smile as if she hadn’t the vaguest notion of what he possessed beneath his stylish and too-snug breeches.

From the cocksure look on his face, he’d obviously witnessed her curious glance, and he strode into the box with an air of smug confidence. Throwing himself down in the seat beside her, he stuck his legs out in front of him and turned a dazzling grin at her. “Provoking Lady Pilsley again? You have a devilish sense of humor, Mrs. Townsend.” He tipped his head closer. “’Tis why I like you.”

Charlotte pulled back, alarmed at his proximity. “You like me?”

He laughed. “Obviously I’m not tipping Finny enough, or the depth of my affections wouldn’t be such a surprise. Then again, you know well enough that everyone in Town admires you.” He glanced over at the next box. “With the distinct exception of Lady Pilsley.” He looked around Charlotte’s empty box and smiled again. “I see we are alone tonight. No hungry hordes of your admirers to crowd me? Perhaps that case of brandy I sent ’round to Finny wasn’t wasted after all.”

That explained Rockhurst’s knowledge of her gown this morning and Finella’s enthusiastic and unending stream of praise for the man.

The earl continued, “Or is our intimate evening planned so our mutual friend has a clear vantage from which to see you flirt so outrageously with me?” He nodded his
head across the floor of the opera house to the boxes opposite hers.

She looked up to find Sebastian staring at her. A smile rose on her lips immediately, and she was about to wave at him until she realized he wasn’t alone.

Beside him sat a glowering Miss Burke.

For a moment, Charlotte forgot that she was wearing the most elegant gown she’d ever seen. Forgot that she was Lottie Townsend, celebrated beauty and most desired woman in London.

Looking at Lavinia Burke, who was still the same pretty, polished, and perfect miss that she had been before, it was hard to think of herself as anything other than Miss Charlotte Wilmont, poor overlooked spinster.

Charlotte sank in her seat, her heart trembling. How could she compete with the likes of Miss Burke?

Oh, it was hardly fair! Why had so much changed but not
her
? When Quince had turned the world upside down, why hadn’t she tipped Miss Burke on her pert nose and given her a good shake?

“She’s quite pretty, don’t you think?” Rockhurst asked, leaning close again. “If I were in Trent’s thin shoes I’d probably chase after her as well. When you must marry an heiress, might as well marry a pretty one, I say.”

Only one thought saved Charlotte from a bout of frustrated tears. “He doesn’t love her.”

Rockhurst laughed, loudly and thoroughly, drawing a censorious glance from Lady Pilsley. “Love? When did you, my cynical, mercenary little light-skirt, have anything to do with such a foolish notion as love?”

“I-I-,” she stammered and hemmed as she tried to explain herself.

Meanwhile, Rockhurst leaned back in his seat and was
taking in the crowd filling the house. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were in love with him.” He made an indelicate snort. “Now wouldn’t that be a lark?”

“I-I-”
Of course I am in love with him. I’ve been in love with him for years and I intend to stay that way until the day I die.
But instead of making her very Charlotte protest, she turned away, remembering Finella’s tirade on the same subject.

Whatever is wrong with being in love?
she wanted to ask them all.
Whatever is wrong with Sebastian being in love with me?

She snuck another glance over at Sebastian, who sat there, smiling down at Miss Burke, hanging on her every word, every flutter of her yellow silk fan.
Please, Sebastian,
she wished,
look at me
.

And by some miracle of fate, he did. His gaze rose immediately and met hers without hesitation. His eyes narrowed for a second, but then she saw it.

A flash. That connection. And moreover, she felt it. Right down to her silken-clad toes. As if his gaze had raked over the bare skin of her neck with the same heat that his kiss had evoked earlier.

And that wasn’t the only place she felt it, but she still wasn’t Lottie enough to admit such a thing.

Not that Sebastian stopped there. His hand rose and raked through his dark hair.

And she could feel it.
Remember it
.

“Lottie, how I love your hair.” His fingers combed through the strands, greedily pulling the pins free to gather it all into his eager grasp.

The sensation was so real, the memory so vivid, her fingers rose to check to make sure her carefully arranged coiffure was still in place.

Even so, her scalp tingled, her body coming alive, clamoring greedily for its fair share of his touch.

And across the opera house, Sebastian smiled ever so slightly.
As if he knew.

Charlotte shifted in her seat as a devilish heat spread through her veins.

Sebastian’s hand moved from his head down over his coat, slowly and carefully brushing at an imaginary hair or bit of lint on his breast.