His Mistress by Morning (20 page)

The greeting this time held none of William’s warm and easy greetings.

Even Charlotte, two and a half decades later, could feel the chill of disaster written all over this missive.

He was marrying another? When Finella was pregnant with his child?

Charlotte made a very unladylike noise in the back of her throat and borrowed one of her cousin’s more expressive phrases. “Wretched bastard.” How could he? She read on to discover the truth, but there was little else to the letter but more admonitions not to contact him again with her troubles.

Charlotte’s jaw worked back and forth in anger—that is, until she realized there was a small packet tucked into the letter.

A second letter added to this very cold one.

“Harrumph,” she sputtered. “‘Miss Uppington-Higgins’ one minute and ‘My beloved’ the next. You blighter. How dare you even try to win her affections anew.”

Still, Charlotte’s curiosity got the better of her and she read on.

“And what of Finella, you coward?” Charlotte said. “What of your child?”

It seemed though, that William had thought of them.

Charlotte’s heart stilled as her eyes reread the passage over and over.

Charlotte tried to breathe, tried to push aside the startling notion of William’s outrageous proposal. The floor shifted beneath her and she clamored to her feet and retrieved the earlier letters, glancing at the dates and making a hasty count of months.

Seven months. The first letter was dated seven months before she was born.

Suddenly the two worlds she’d been straddling collided, and so many things made sense.

Why her mother had always been so disdainful of her.

Her mother.
She wasn’t even sure she could give that name to Lady Wilmont any longer.

Some things are the same, the important ones,
Quince
had said.
But time is like a garden, touched by winter one year, kissed by a gentle spring the next. You never know what will take root and bloom.

In one life, William’s plan had worked. And in this one, obviously Lady Wilmont had scorned her cousin and given her the cut direct, as had the rest of their Uppington-Higgins relations.

Leaving Finella and her child to find their own way in the world.

No wonder Finny had reacted with such venom over Aurora’s letter that morning and why the former Lady Wilmont had all but left her box rather than sit so close to Charlotte, a living embodiment of a family disgrace.

Ever so quietly, Charlotte gathered all the letters together and tied them up into a single bundle, which she laid atop Finella’s writing desk.

She tidied up the rest of the room, pulled the curtains closed, then tiptoed out.

Charlotte made it no further than the steps and sunk down on them, her legs giving way, as if she’d consumed a bottle of Kimpton’s brandy.

Loss, deep and unfathomable, overcame her and she gave way to tears, mourning the loss of everything she’d known, of her proper sensibilities, of her name. For truly, she wasn’t Charlotte Wilmont.

Nor even Lottie Townsend.

And now what?

Charlotte couldn’t help wondering if she was going to end her days like Finella, in a drunken stupor with nothing but yellowed and tattered memories of a past best left forgotten.

S
ebastian didn’t visit Charlotte that night. Or the next. By the third night, she thought she’d go mad. Whatever was she to do?

Almost as bad as Sebastian’s desertion was the knowledge that Finella was her mother. Charlotte had so many questions: Had William married Lady Portia? How and when had Finella entered the trade? And why had she allowed her daughter to do the same?

Yet every time she opened her mouth to ask, she stopped herself. Finella had been on edge since Kimpton’s marriage, and the last thing Charlotte wanted to do was pry into old wounds and set the lady off on another bender.

Even now, as they stood together in the foyer, an awkward uneasiness rose up between the two of them. Finella, she suspected, felt some guilt over Sebastian’s disappearance.

“You needn’t pace about all evening,” Finella told her as she rummaged about her purse. Dressed to the nines,
right down to nearly every piece of jewelry she owned and a few bits borrowed from Lottie’s collection, she still had a worn, tired look about her that no amount of finery could hide. “He won’t be here for hours…” Her voice trailed off and Charlotte could well imagine the rest of the lady’s speculation.
…if he comes at all…

“He’ll be here,” Charlotte assured her.

Finella looked up. “Tonight is Lady Routledge’s debutante soirée. He’ll be
there.
Besides, there’s to be an announcement, if the gossip is to be believed.”

“What gossip?” Charlotte asked.

“About Miss Burke.” Finella tugged the strings on her reticule tight. “Lottie, you can’t ignore the truth. He is going to marry that girl. I’m surprised the engagement hasn’t been announced, considering he hasn’t been here since—”

Since Finella’s drunken display. Since he’d accused her of chasing after Rockhurst. Since everything had gone so very wrong.

“Well, in days,” Finella concluded, unknotting her purse strings and making another furtive search of the insides.

“Where are you off to?” Charlotte asked, not ready to face another night alone.

Finella’s nose wrinkled. “’Tis Wednesday.”

“Wednesday?”

“Goodness, Lottie, this affair with Trent has turned you as absentminded as Mrs. Dimbleton cross the way. ’Tis Wednesday.” She waited for a moment, then heaved another sigh. “The night I play whist. We’ll be at Mrs. Campbell’s tonight, for Mrs. Van Horne hasn’t been well of late.”

Charlotte nodded. Oh, yes. Finella had mentioned it
before. Her weekly whist game with the other aging courtesans of Little Titchfield Street. Some of the most formidable Incognitos of their time, they now spent their nights playing whist and making up outrageous lies about the generosity and virility of their former lovers, flaunting their jewels as if they still had front row boxes at the Opera. They met at Mrs. Van Horne’s house because she could claim the highest-ranking former lover, a royal duke, who had left her a tidy annuity payable until her death. That she had outlived the old Lothario by more than forty years was a thorn in the side of his descendants, but it gave the lady a measure of distinction amongst her peers.

“And you?” Finella asked. “What are you to do tonight?” She glanced over at the giant vase filled with hothouse roses that had arrived earlier in the day. From Rockhurst. “Is the earl the reason for your finery?”

“No,” Charlotte told her. “Sebastian is going to call tonight.”

“He sent a note?” she asked, knowing full well he hadn’t. Finella missed nothing that happened in the house.

“No, but he said he would call and I suspect tonight is the night he is going to make his apologies.”

“Oh, Lottie,” Finella moaned. “You can’t do this to yourself or you’ll end up in the Thames with your pockets full of rocks like Sarah Whitting last year.”

Charlotte straightened her shoulders, not willing to believe anything other than that Sebastian loved her and he was going to call. “Finella, he will call tonight, and if not, he most likely has a very good reason—”

Even before Finella could make a good snort, the bell over the door jangled and both women froze.

“Sebastian,” Charlotte whispered like a prayer and
rushed forward. She would have flung the door open if Finella hadn’t caught her by the arm.

“Don’t be in such a hurry or he’ll know he has the upper hand.” With a huffy sigh of experience, she towed Charlotte behind her and counted softly to twenty—each number a painful nudge to Charlotte’s hammering heart—then slowly opened the door.

Charlotte rose up on her tiptoes to see over Finella’s plumes, but to her disappointment it wasn’t Sebastian standing in the doorway but a short little man in a dark, plain coat.

“Mrs. Townsend?” he inquired.

“Who’s calling?” Finella’s fists went to rest on her hips, blocking his path.

“Mr. Bridge. Of Rundell and Bridge, ma’am. I have a package for Mrs. Townsend.”

Charlotte’s mouth fell open. The jeweler? “I’m Mrs. Townsend.”

“Yes, yes, there you are. I have a gift for you.” He opened his coat and pulled out a long narrow box. “If I may?” he asked, nodding toward the entry.

Finella, ever the sharp-eyed opportunist, pulled the poor jeweler inside as if she were reeling in a lost cask of well-aged brandy. “There now,” she said. “I am so sorry, Mr. Bridge. I didn’t recognize you.”

“Mrs. Birley,” he said, paying her scant heed, his attention fixed on Charlotte. “I was instructed to give this to you directly.” He placed the box in her trembling hands. “And tell you it is with his lordship’s most sincere apologies.”

Finella hustled her way to Charlotte’s side and nudged her. “Well?”

Despite the way her fingers trembled, Charlotte managed to get the box open, and what she spied inside left her breathless.

The diamond necklace from the window. The very one that had caused the terrible rift between them.

“Is it to your liking, ma’am?” Mr. Bridge asked.

“I would think so,” Finella shot back.

Charlotte, meanwhile, was reading the small note tucked into the satin lining. “‘For you. For our future.’” Tears welled up in her eyes. He’d spent a fortune—money he didn’t have—to tell her he was so sorry. “Oh, Lord Trent shouldn’t have.”

“Of course he should,” Finella muttered. “And about damn time.”

“Lord Trent, ma’am?” Mr. Bridge said from the doorway, where he was making his discreet exit. “Lord Trent didn’t purchase those.”

“He didn’t?” Charlotte said. “Of course he did!”

The man shook his head. “No, ma’am. It was Lord Rockhurst who sent those to you. With his compliments.”

The evening, as Finella had predicted, was leaving Charlotte ready to consider a lonely swim in the Thames.

Tired of pacing about the salon and dashing to the window every time she thought she heard a carriage, she’d retrieved a deck of cards from the sideboard and decided to try a simple game of Patience.

She found it nearly as provoking as waiting. Absently, she flipped over the next card and found herself staring at the mocking face of the Queen of Hearts—which bore a startling resemblance to Lavinia Burke.

“Steady, Charlotte,” she told herself, getting up from
the table and resuming her pacing about the room. “If Finella finds out you spent the night chatting up the walls and playing Patience, she’ll have you committed.”

Then again, she could argue that this entire wish nonsense should have been enough to gain her a corner suite at Bedlam.

Sebastian Marlowe…in love with her.
She’d been a fool to believe in Quince’s assertions that it was possible. That his heart had always belonged to her.

Even Tromler had deserted her, for the talented German hadn’t struck a single note all night, leaving her in silence and misery.

She looked over at the mocking face of the Queen of Hearts and in an angry, frustrated moment, she swept her hand across the table, sending the cards scattering. Along with the deck went the box from Rundell and Bridge, and the diamond necklace spilled to the carpet as well.

The cold icy stones stared up at her, making her simple wish for love seem such a travesty.

Damn Rockhurst! Damn him and his diamonds.

This was all his fault.

She bent over to pick them up and went to put them back in the box, but for a moment she found herself transfixed by the way they sparkled and glittered, by the sheer weight of them in her hands. Never in her life had she held something so expensive, so utterly beautiful.

Try them on. What harm is it to just try them on?

Charlotte shook her head.
No. Never.
She wanted nothing to do with the earl, with his offerings. Yet when she glanced down at the necklace in her hand, the lure of such perfect stones got the better of her.

Until her dying day, she knew not what she was thinking—mayhap it was Sebastian’s apparent desertion—
but she closed her eyes and put them on, her fingers fumbling with the clasp until it clicked into place.

At first the diamonds and gold settings lay cold against her skin, but even as her fingers traced the stones and she turned ever-so-slowly around to see herself in the mirror, they warmed, giving her a sense of power and beauty she’d never realized could be gained by mere gems.

No wonder such tokens are so sought after,
she mused, thinking of Finella and her bejeweled cronies. Rising up on her toes to get a better look at herself in the mirror over the mantel, she marveled at the way it fit.

Rockhurst had been right. The necklace seemed made for her, the diamonds accenting the lines of her neck, the large stone in the center pendant falling at the very top of her bosom, calling attention to the bounty bound beneath her satin gown.

“Retirement jewels,” Finella would call them, but Charlotte shook her head at the very notion of keeping them—they came at too high a price. For to keep them meant forsaking Sebastian, and she couldn’t do that. Not as long as there was even a whisper of hope, the slightest chance of them finding a future together.

Glancing about the room, her wild gaze fell on the bouquet from Rockhurst and she was halfway across the room and about to send it crashing down as well when the bell jangled over the door.

Sebastian.

Until another thought struck her.
Rockhurst.

“Botheration.” Heaving a sigh, she went to answer the door as the bell jangled again, this time with more feeling. Well, perhaps there was a third explanation.

“Finella,” she muttered. The lady was probably too tipsy to find her key. “Really, Finella, if you can’t keep
yourself—” she was saying as she tugged the door open.

She’d been right the first time.
Sebastian.

“May I come in?” he asked, stiffly, formally.

She pulled the door open for him and bit her lips together for fear she’d say something incoherent or ridiculous.

He swept past her and continued into the salon, his massive black cloak swirling after him. The scent of bay rum drifted past her, and she inhaled in that crazy drunken manner, rather like Finella when she walked past the now-locked liquor cabinet.

Be calm, Charlotte,
she told herself.
Don’t let him see how distressed you’ve been.

What was it Finella always said? Oh, yes. A good courtesan is cool and indifferent.

Instead, she rushed after him and nearly ran into his back.

And when he turned around she could see something had changed.

No, make that everything.

They stared at each other, Charlotte drinking in the sight of him dressed for the evening yet looking tired and haggard. How had it come to this? They should be upstairs by now—half dressed and delirious with desire. Not eyeing each other like strangers.

“I left Lady Routledge’s early because we have a matter that needs discussing.”

This took her aback.
A matter?
Charlotte felt that unused temper of Lottie’s stir, but before she could manage to say anything, Sebastian spoke again. “My mother told me about your scene in the ribbon shop.”

“
My
scene?”

“Yes, I heard all about it.” His arms crossed over his chest.

Her scene, indeed! She’d had nothing to do with that terrible encounter. Well, nearly nothing. “You weren’t there. I merely—”

“You shouldn’t have offered,” he said, his voice rising sharply. “Why, it’s…it’s outrageous!”

“Sebastian, you weren’t there! That shopkeeper was being perfectly odious. And poor Hermione—” She came to a blundering stop when his brow cocked upward at her familiar use of his sister’s name.

Demmit, Lady Hermione was her best friend. Well, had been. Would be still, if…if only…

Oh, however could she explain it to him?

Instead, she tried another tack. “It was nothing but a length of ribbon, and your sister seems to be very nice. ’Tis a shame, when I have money enough—”

“My family’s finances are none of your affair.” He made this statement with such a stubborn defiance, with such finality, that her long-simmering temper refused to be restrained any longer.

“What is wrong with my money?” she shot back. “’Tis gold like any other’s. And I might point out that I haven’t any problem with creditors.”

He flinched and turned a dark, stormy gaze on her. “Your money? You want me to take
your
money?” His lips curled with disdain.

Charlotte stepped back. Why was he looking at her like this? “If that is how you feel,” she said icily, “perhaps you need to return to Lady Routledge’s. I would hate to be the reason you are tardy for Miss Burke’s performance. I hear it is worth its weight in gold. Ten
thousand a year, I’d venture.” She watched his jaw work back and forth, saw the frustration in his eyes. “What is the difference, Sebastian, if you marry Miss Burke for her money or you take mine? The fortunes will have been gained in much the same manner.”

Suddenly his gaze narrowed, and she felt the weight of it land on her neck. On Rockhurst’s diamonds.

Oh, demmit, the diamonds! In her haste to answer the door, she’d forgotten to take them off.

He stared at the necklace, his face a mixture of emotions. “I see I’ve come too late.” He laughed, the bitter sound tearing at her heart. “The irony of all this is that if I had used my winnings from the races at Saunderton’s and bought Battersby’s ridiculous shares, I’d be a rich man now.”