His Mistress by Morning (18 page)

“Hear me well, you harlot,” Lady Walbrook said in a menacing voice. “If you think that offers of money will smooth your way, you are most decidedly wrong. As long as I have a breath left in my body, my son will not marry you.”

“Marry me?” Charlotte felt as if the woman had indeed slapped her. Why, it had never occurred to her that Sebastian would…

It was a lie, of course. And Lady Walbrook could see that. “Oh, aren’t you the coy one. Do you think I haven’t heard the gossip? Know where my son has been this past fortnight?” Her lip curled into a snarl. “Entrapped by
your devious charms. But listen well: you’ll not have him. He’s bound to another and there is nothing you can do about it. He’ll come to his senses any day now and toss you back into the gutter where you belong.”

Charlotte tried to breathe, tried to think of something, anything to say to mollify the lady, assure her that she wasn’t the ruinous vixen that the countess thought her to be.

“You are nothing but baggage. Foul baggage!” the lady declared. “It is blood and breeding that defines a lady—not the reticule full of silver and gold she finds on her dresser in the morning. I’ll go in rags before I see a tuppence of your ill-gained fortune go toward my family.”

With that said, the matron gathered up her skirts as if she stood in the middle of a stable yard and stalked from the tiny shop, nearly bowling over the man at the doorway.

He bowed and murmured, “Good day to you, my lady.”

“Rockhurst,” she acknowledged with a grudging sniff. She might be cross as crabs, but she was still the mother of three unmarried daughters and the man before her was an earl. An unattached one, to boot—which demanded a hasty return to some semblance of manners.

“My lady,” he replied. “Good day to you.”

“Harrumph!” she sputtered, shooting one last, hot, peevish glance at Charlotte.

And then she was gone, bustling out into the street, shooing her daughters along as if they were in flight from the plague.

Charlotte stood frozen in place, the countess’s blistering attack still stinging in her ears.

Foul baggage!

How could Charlotte have forgotten, even for a second, the great divide between proper society and those outside the privileged walls. Lady Walbrook’s words had gone a long way toward reminding her of the true nature of her existence—Sebastian’s true love or not—she was no better than a Seven Dials whore in the eyes of Lady Walbrook.

She glanced up, tears clouding her vision. As she swiped them away, the Earl of Rockhurst came into clear focus. And from the polite yet strained look on his face, she knew he’d heard every word of the lady’s tirade.

“That was unpleasant,” he offered.

All Charlotte could do was burst into tears.

For a moment, Rockhurst glanced around the shop, looking for some other female to appear and take over. When no help arrived, he did the unexpected and gathered Charlotte into his arms.

“There now, Mrs. Townsend. I daresay this isn’t the first time that has happened to a lady in your circumstances, and I daresay it won’t be the last.”

Once Charlotte regained some semblance of her composure, Rockhurst sent Gallagher and Prudence on home, taking Charlotte by the arm and walking with her down Bond Street.

A disgruntled Rowan trotted behind them, occasionally knocking Rockhurst in the back with his great gray head and growling from time to time at the lady on his master’s arm.

It didn’t take more than half a block for the earl to reveal the truth of the Marlowes’ situation to her.

“I can’t believe any of this,” Charlotte said, glancing over her shoulder at the massive wolfhound. The beast left her with the uneasy feeling that he
knew
she wasn’t the Lottie Townsend everyone thought her to be. “The Marlowes have never been all that plump in the pockets, but broke?”

“Up the River Tick,” he told her. As they continued along the busy street, the matrons and regal ladies shot the pair scandalized looks and whisked their skirts out of Charlotte’s path. Rockhurst, if he noticed, paid them no heed. “Near as I can tell, they’ve got a few weeks at most before their creditors leave them without a rag.”

“That explains Miss Burke,” she mused aloud, not really meaning to give voice to her conclusion.

“Exactly,” Rockhurst said softly. “Miss Burke’s dowry is more than enough to see them out of dun territory and back into the good graces of the merchants. That’s how Trent and his father have been holding off the worst of them—for you see, everyone expected a betrothal announcement by now.”

“But they aren’t engaged,” she said with a little too much force, coming to a stop before a jeweler’s shop.

Rockhurst’s brows rose slightly. “No, they aren’t.”

“It isn’t as if he needs
her
money,” she declared recklessly. “He could have mine.”

“Ah, yes, your money. Certainly your tidy fortune would satisfy the likes of Bond Street, but after that scene back there, do you honestly see Lady Walbrook as the welcoming mother-in-law?”

Charlotte turned from him, putting her gloved hand on the window and staring absently at the wares displayed behind the glass. The expensive and beautifully wrought
gems and gold held little interest to her. “She’d come around.”

“Would she?” He reached over and ruffled Rowan’s bristly head. The dog let out another growl of protest, then with a curt word from his owner, sat obediently at his side, though his large, dark eyes never left Charlotte.

Rockhurst continued. “Ah, yes, she’d be quite enchanted by your charms when the rest of the
ton
cut them off. When her three unmarried daughters can’t gain vouchers to Almack’s, let alone an invitation to some cit’s wretched card party because of their sister-in-law.”

“It wouldn’t come to that,” Charlotte declared. But even as she said it, she knew Rockhurst’s predictions held the same clarity as the diamond necklace in the shop’s window. Society would turn their collective backs on the Marlowes without a pitying glance if she and Sebastian were to marry.

But certainly their love could breach something even so seemingly insurmountable as the
ton
’s displeasure?

Her fingers toyed with the ring hidden beneath her glove. Perhaps Quince could help.

’T’was only one more wish. Such a small thing.

“Unfortunately for Trent,” Rockhurst was saying, “he’s torn by his affection for you and his duty to his family.”

“He loves me,” she whispered.

“Aye, he does.” The earl glanced up and down the street. “Though I never thought you held his regard with the same intent…. I don’t know what to make of you, Mrs. Townsend. I had thought…well, been under the impression that we had reached an agreement a few weeks ago, and then suddenly you, well, you’ve—”

“Changed?”

He nodded, his eyes narrowing as his gaze swept over
her. “Very much so. Not that I mind, but it makes the situation all that much more difficult—for I am not a man inclined to share a lady’s favors, and I have a terrible suspicion that you share Trent’s dilemma.”

Charlotte looked away as the sting of tears once again filled her eyes. She had no idea why such an admission should make her cry, but after the encounter with Lady Walbrook she felt a terrible sense of shame over her feelings, her desire for Sebastian.

If she hadn’t wished for his love…

“Egads,” Rockhurst said, his voice sounding almost as scandalized as Lady Walbrook’s. “You
do
love him.”

Her chin tipped up. “But you just said you suspected.”

“Suspected, yes. Believed it?” He shook his head.

She picked up her skirts and started to walk around him, but Rowan blocked her path, giving Rockhurst the chance to reach out and catch her by the elbow. “Don’t be offended, madame. In all honesty, I envy the man.” Then just as suddenly as he’d stopped her, he let go of her and took a step away, his words letting slip more than possibly even he had intended.

Yet the truth of it was there as she looked up into his eyes. The light of desire she spied revealed that Rockhurst held more than a friendly, competitive
tendre
for her.

As much as Lady Walbrook’s outburst had stung, Rockhurst’s confession astounded her.

The Earl of Rockhurst in love with her? Charlotte didn’t know if her life could be any further complicated.

But whatever feelings the man held for her, his tone turned light once again. Too light. “Come now, Mrs. Townsend, take a look over your shoulder. If you were to set Trent free, let him marry his dour little heiress, then
I would be inclined to show you the very generous heart I possess.”

Charlotte laughed, against her own better judgment. She turned around and eyed the gaudy, showy piece. The double row of diamonds twinkled and sparkled seductively.

He leaned closer. “They haven’t half your flair, but I daresay you’d look dazzling in them.”

“You are joking,” Charlotte said. “You’d buy me those?”

“Those and more, if you wanted,” Rockhurst said, his voice full of sensual promise, the kind that made Charlotte recall Finella’s lusty description of the man. “If you only say the word.”

“What word?” came an inquiry from behind them.

Charlotte and Rockhurst spun around to find Sebastian looking anything but pleased to see his best friend and mistress together.

He strode forward and looked at the necklace Rockhurst had pointed out. “Hmm. A bit tawdry even for you, don’t you think, Lottie?”

The bitterness and suspicion in his voice cut her to the quick. “I-I-I-,” she sputtered, while taking a hasty and deliberate step out of the earl’s lofty shadow.

Sebastian said nothing to her; rather, he greeted his friend in a brusque manner. “Rockhurst.”

The earl paid little heed to the tension. “Ah, Trent! Done with your afternoon calls so early?”

“Yes,” Sebastian replied. “I thought to discover Mrs. Townsend at her shopping, and here she is, looking quite diverted.” He turned to Charlotte. “I thought you said you were going with Corinna.”

“I was, but—”

“So I see,” Sebastian said, not letting her finish.

Rockhurst smiled. “I was just pointing out a necklace to the lady. What say you, Trent, do you think it would suit her?” The earl pointed at the diamonds in front. “I think the stones match her fire.”

Sebastian took another hasty glance at the necklace, his jaw tightening at the expensive token.

A token, Charlotte now knew, that sat well beyond his strained pockets.

Hastily she spoke up. “I was about to tell Lord Rockhurst that I thought it too showy.”

“When did you ever think any diamond too showy?” Sebastian asked her. He looked over at the stones again. “Rockhurst is right. They do have your fire…and your flaws.”

That last bit held a horrible note of displeasure, of a jealousy and anger that had no place between them.

It was all Charlotte could do not to rush to explain everything to him, to make him see how it was she had come to stand here of all places with the earl.

The man whose name held the most places in White’s betting book as her next protector.

He was only trying to help me,
she wanted to say.
I was in this shop and I ran into your mother—

Oh, that would never do. She couldn’t tell him about that. Tell him she knew of the predicament she had placed him in.

Then an awful, niggling doubt tugged at her heart. What if it was only Quince’s bit of magic that had turned Sebastian’s affections in her direction? Could he have ever loved her without her wish?

Meanwhile, Rockhurst had stepped in to take up her
defense, which only served to make that vein in Sebastian’s forehead bulge further. “Come now, Trent! You mustn’t blame the lady. I found her quite distraught and was engaging her in a little harmless wager as to how much this—”

Oh, yes, this was perfect! Point out yet again the necklace that Rockhurst could afford and Sebastian could not.

“Lord Trent,” Charlotte blurted out. “Will you be so good as to escort me home? I’m afraid I’ve lost Prudence and Mr. Gallagher.”

Sebastian’s gaze rose from where it had been fixed on the priceless bit of jewelry and met Rockhurst’s.

His expression reminded her of how he had looked when he’d confronted Lord Lyman in Berkeley Square, and now she feared he was about to come to blows with the earl.

She caught his arm. “I fear I am getting a megrim from the sun.”

It was overcast, but neither of the gentlemen seemed to notice. Rockhurst was too busy acting as if there was nothing unusual about his shopping for jewelry with his friend’s mistress, and Sebastian, well, he appeared ready to call for seconds.

“Please,” she whispered.

Then to her rescue came a very unlikely knight-errant.
Lord Battersby.
“Ho there! Trent! Rockhurst! Just the pair I’ve been looking for,” he called out from across the busy street.

Luckily for them, the traffic prevented the man from crossing. Just yet.

Rockhurst tipped his hat at Charlotte. “Lovely day,
Mrs. Townsend. Trent,” he said, before giving Rowan a sharp whistle. The pair of them set out at a fast clip down the street.

Sebastian glanced over at her, and for a moment his hard features softened. Then he took her hand and placed it deliberately on his sleeve. “Oh, come along. My curricle is just over here.”

They dashed over to his carriage, and he helped her up. He bounded around the other side and they were off, just as Battersby finally found a chance to cross.

Sebastian took off at a breakneck speed and left the poor man in the dust.

Nothing was said between them for a block or so, but the silence was driving Charlotte to distraction.

“Sebastian, I was just—”

“Don’t, Lottie. Don’t explain to me what you were doing with him.”

“I wasn’t doing anything with him.” Charlotte supposed she should be surprised at the amount of brass that had come out with that statement, but she doubted Lottie would be easily cowed by his dark mood. So neither should she. “Sebastian Marlowe, you are many things to me, but right now you are being a complete ass.”