Mistress by Midnight (10 page)

She withdrew, wrapping the sheet more decisively around herself. “If we are done, my lord? I am sure you have important matters to attend to.”

Con frowned. “I cannot think of one more important than you. Than us.”

Laurette slid off the bed, fashioning the sheet like a Roman toga. “I must bathe. We were careless just now. I shouldn’t want to provide you with another bastard child.”

Con bit his tongue. There was nothing he would like better than to have Laurette filled with his child, watch them both grow round in domestic bliss. But the possibility of marriage to him was obviously not on her mind. He had led her to believe the very impossibility of it when he maneuvered her into his bed two nights ago.

He would not spend on the sheets or wear anything that was a barrier between her honeyed heat and his rod. He had waited too long. “You are right, of course,” he said carelessly. “I assume you know how to prevent such an occurrence? I will not deny my own pleasure as I once did.”

“For all the good it did,” Laurette said shortly. “I shall speak to Nadia. You’ll have nothing to worry about.”

Damn.
So it was to be sponges like last night. If she had not wept in his arms, he would have pulled at the string and flooded her with seed. He did not think she had been protected when she came to him two nights ago. He had not been certain she would agree to this hellish bargain himself. He got up and gathered his clothes.

He was in the middle of tying his neckcloth when she asked, “I will be safe, will I not? You have not got one of those gentleman’s diseases that will affect me in any way? Something else you picked up on your travels?”

He turned to her, his lips twitching. “I assure you, Laurette, I am as pure as the driven snow.”

She snorted. For a moment he thought he’d tell her everything—that he’d been celibate over a decade and found it to be no hardship—but she’d think him a fool. But no one could think he was a greater fool than he himself.

“I shall dine with you tomorrow night. At nine. Tell Qalhata. She knows what I like.”

“Yes, my lord. We all do.”

She didn’t have a clue, but someday—someday, she would know everything.

N
ine o’clock was hours and hours away. Laurette hardly knew how she was going to pass the time until then. It was not that she was so desperate to see Con again. Or take him into her bed and into her body. Certainly not. She didn’t care that he’d sit opposite from her eating fish in a sauce seasoned with an herbal medley she had never heard of—
zaatar
—peas, beans, rice, mixed green salad, and the strange flat bread that Qalhata baked daily. The meal was, Qalhata and Nadia assured her, his favorite. Laurette had been hoping for lamb with mint sauce but would be presented that tomorrow at luncheon as a consolation offering. She was still too full of breakfast and lunch to even dream of dinner, whatever it might taste like. In fact, it was clear to her that she needed to go upstairs and unlace her stays, perhaps remove them altogether. She might undress. Take a nap, although she was too enervated to be sleepy.

This was now the third full day of her mistressness. Was that even a word? Mistressship? Too many of the letter ‘s’. Mistresshood? Whatever it was, it was not agreeing with her. She was not used to idleness or isolation. She could not fault Con for the appointments in the house or the well-stocked bookshelves. But there was simply not a thing for her to do besides read and stare at her freckled reflection in the mirrors positioned throughout the house. Even the garden was immaculately
weed-free, each dying petal plucked by unseen hands so all was tidy and serene.

She paced her room in irritation, finally summoning Martine to help her change from her new day dress to one she had brought with her. Laurette had not thought it too shabby when she packed it, but in comparison to the clothes in her dressing room, it was a horror…. Good. She felt horrible. At least the old blue gown was hers, sewn by Sadie too many years ago to recollect. Laurette would wear it as she paced the upstairs parlor, paced the downstairs parlor, paced the garden. Con had given her no instructions about leaving the house, but with her luck she was likely to bump into an acquaintance and all would be lost.

It was one thing to lie by letter, quite another to look into someone’s face and dissemble. Laurette had never been good at telling fibs, although she had left out a great deal of narration growing up. And look where that had gotten her. At one time she had thought it fortunate that her parents were so distracted with drink and gambling that she was able to slip off with Con. Now she saw the error of that. She had a secret child and a wastrel brother, and she was waiting for her Machiavellian lover.

If she had been a young lady properly brought-up by proper parents, she would know how to occupy the useless hours that stretched ahead of her. She might be tatting or playing the pianoforte that was below. Embroidering a slipper or arranging flowers.

Well. Perhaps she could arrange flowers. The ones on the mantle were a bit droopy. At home she would gather up buds and put them in clean jars. Here she had crystal vases. The garden was in riotous bloom.

She stopped in the kitchen for shears, drawn by the rapid chatter. Both Nadia and Qalhata were engrossed in tonight’s supper preparations, the scrubbed table laden with all manner of foodstuffs. They seemed alarmed to see her. After a lengthy discussion as to why she didn’t ring for someone,
Nadia needed to be convinced that Laurette was capable of cutting her own flowers and being entrusted with a pair of scissors. As if, Laurette thought grumpily, wielding scissors could cut her way out of her current predicament and get her back home.

“I shan’t stab you with them,” Laurette mumbled, exasperated. “I shan’t stab myself, I swear. It hasn’t come to that.”

“Oh! My lady!” Nadia rubbed her hands nervously on her pinafore. “Are you not happy here?”

“No. Yes,” she said, catching the dismay on Nadia’s face. Laurette sat down on a kitchen chair. She reached across the table for a green bean and snapped it in half, tossing it into the earthenware bowl. “You are all very kind. It’s just that—” Laurette looked at the women. They would think her fit for Bedlam if she complained she wanted to work. They were both up before dawn and until well after dark creating this blissful artificial life for her. To them just one day of utter idleness would seem like a dream. Even though the house was small, Laurette knew how much effort it involved. She snapped another bean.

“I live in the country, you see. I keep chickens and a garden. I’m just not used to inactivity. Waiting.”

“Ah.” Nadia sliced a cucumber for the salad, so thin it was transparent. “You are lonely. I have neglected you.”

“No, no. I don’t expect you to entertain me. I’ll get used to this. It’s not for so very long.”

Nadia and Qalhata exchanged a look.

“I’m sorry. I’m keeping you from your tasks. If you will just tell me where the shears are?”

Qalhata rose from the table and went to the Welsh dresser. “You may keep these for your flowers. I have other pairs.”

Laurette took the shiny scissors. They were as new as the rest of the furnishings of the house. “Thank you. I won’t trouble you again.”

“Is no trouble. We are here for you, my lady.”

The long kitchen opened to both the street and the garden
by way of stone steps. Laurette shut the door behind her, because she was certain she did not want to hear the women’s comments on her spoiled behavior, if they even discussed her in a language she could understand. Everyone in this house was far more capable linguistically than she. Perhaps she could get them to teach her to speak something other than English and very fractured French.

Ah, how ridiculous. As if they would have time for that. She was the only one with time on her hands. Laurette had seen even the young kitchen boy doing chores upstairs. Aram seemed to divide his job between Con’s townhouse and hers, but he was here in the evening to sleep beside his wife.

Laurette glanced at the little timepiece she had pinned to the bodice of her dress. The watch had been her mother’s, and it told her she was but fifteen minutes closer to Con’s arrival since the last time she looked. She sat down on the stone bench. The back wall of the garden was bathed in sunlight, its bricks warm against her back. Deep blue and white tiles that matched the footpath were set at random intervals into the brick. Con must have rebuilt the rear wall, for it seemed twice as thick as her neighbors’, which she spied from her balcony. Thick glossy ivy climbed along the side walls, too well-established to have been created for her benefit.

She closed her eyes, listening to the water splash. She should rise and cut some flowers. Roses, or perhaps something unfamiliar. The garden was full of plants she could not identify, all growing miraculously in the city in their square beds. Her garden-mad mother would have loved it, but would have been shocked to find her daughter installed as Con’s mistress.

And then she heard the groan.

It was actually more of a growl, coming from the next garden. There was a yip, a shriek, and the thud and crash of objects being thrown to the ground. Breakable objects from the sound of them splattering on the hard surface.

“There!” came a satisfied feminine voice. “That will show the bastard!”

Laurette moved to the ivy-covered wall, her curiosity quite overcoming her lassitude. “I say, is something wrong? Are you all right?”

“I am now. Who’s there?”

“Your neighbor.” She thought about giving a false name, but she never had been a happy liar. She’d lied too much. “I’m Laurette.”

“How do you do? I’m called Charlotte. When he remembers my name,” the woman mumbled darkly.

How very odd this was to talk to a disembodied voice. It was like something out of a play. A farce, for certain. “Are you going as mad as I am?” Laurette asked, throwing all caution to the wind. What did it matter if a courtesan thought she was crazy?

“It depends how mad you are. I have always thought of myself as being the steady and sensible one, but lately I have reason to doubt. This is rather absurd, talking through the wall. There’s a wooden door, you know. I imagine it’s covered over on your side, but I’ll rattle the knob.”

“There is?” Laurette stuck her hand through the ivy, searching at the sound. She found the door handle and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. “I’ll have to cut back some of the ivy. Hold on.” She hacked away with Qalhata’s shears until she saw the seam in the wall. She then pulled on the door with all her might. The hinges creaked, and the door opened, but not wide enough for her neighbor to pass through.

“Bother. Can you push?”

“I can try.” Charlotte giggled. “If this doesn’t work, I suppose I could always come round and ring your doorbell.”

“That would take all the adventure out of the endeavor. Here, I’ll pull, you push.”

The rusted hinges cried out as if they were in dire pain, but at last Charlotte squeezed through the space. Laurette gave
her a wide grin, the kind of smile the Cobb sisters had said showed far too many teeth.

This Charlotte did not look like anybody’s mistress. She was pretty enough—quite beautiful, really—but could have passed as a governess. For one thing she was old, at least Laurette’s age. Her dark hair was covered by a little starched cap, something Laurette wouldn’t have worn in a thousand years no matter how firmly on the shelf she was. Charlotte’s ugly gray dress was buttoned up to her chin and she wore a fussy fichu around her neck. The woman might as well have “Virgin Spinster” tattooed to her brow.

But of course, that couldn’t be.

“Oh! How absolutely lovely this is!” Charlotte gazed around the garden. “I watched them put it in from my bedroom window, you know. They all worked like fiends. Even Lord Conover dug right in.” She lowered her voice. “He removed his shirt. You are a lucky woman indeed.”

Laurette snorted. “He
is
a fiend.”

“Oh, my dear, you’ve no idea of a true fiend. Sir Michael Xavier Bayard’s portrait is penciled in right next to the word in Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary.”

“Then why—” Laurette stopped herself. “Forgive me. It’s none of my business.” She certainly would not want to divulge her own particular history with Con.

Charlotte sat on the stone bench and sunned herself. “It’s rather a long, sordid story. Let’s just say that one’s family obligates one to do things that are distasteful if not downright repugnant.”

“Exactly so,” Laurette agreed, wondering how her scapegrace brother was fairing with the old turtle Dr. Griffin. “How long have you been in residence?”

“Long enough. It seems like I’ve been here forever. An eternity. But at least I won’t have to look at the damn cherubs any longer.”

“Pardon?”

“You heard my little fit. The smashing and the screaming. I just broke what are no doubt valuable but entirely vulgar little naked statues that belonged to my predecessor. There are still more in my bedchamber. Would you like to help me finish off the rest?”

Perhaps Charlotte
was
mad, and it had taken her very little time to get there. What would Laurette be like in a month? She shuddered to think.

“Truly, I am not usually so bloodthirsty, not that there’s any blood in gilded plaster, mind you. But when you see them, you’ll understand. Come.” Charlotte stood up and extended a hand.

“I’m not sure—they might miss me,” Laurette said lamely, tilting her head toward the house. For all she knew, this Charlotte would take it into her head to smash
her.

“Oh, you poor dear. I’ve heard all about the strange and mysterious Conover. I saw the
tattoo.
Is he keeping you a prisoner, then?”

“No! Not really.”

“Well then. Come along.”

Laurette swallowed. This prim and proper courtesan was exactly like a governess who brooked no dissent. After one longing look at her kitchen door for a last-minute rescue, Laurette slipped through the ivy-covered door and into the next garden. It too was pretty in its way, but nothing as magical as the garden Con had created for her. And he
had
created it. Charlotte said she watched him do so in his half-naked state.