The Fallen Woman (A Regency Romance) (25 page)

When they stepped through the curtains into their own theatre box, Mary nearly gasped. “This is for… us?!”

“Of course. I couldn’t imagine sitting down there with the rest of the crowd,” he said with a chuckle. “Anyone who’s anyone would have their own box.”

“Oh.” Mary sat down and humbly folded her hands in her lap. “Wow… the view from here is breathtaking!” She pointed a gloved finger toward the ceiling. “Look at that chandelier. I can’t imagine how horrifying it would be if that thing fell on the audience! I think it’s even larger than the one hanging in His Lordship’s dining room!”

“That chandelier is nothing. There are many things in the world that are much more magnificent than that. I’d take you so many places if I could. I’d take you to castles and palaces. I want to see your eyes light up every day,” he said, “if only you’d let me.”

Mary sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that, Andrew. You’re so confusing.”

Andrew sat beside her and grinned. Confusion was a good sign. It meant her resistance was crumbling. It was a definite improvement over the continuous rebukes she used to give him.

The actors’ arrival on the stage was heralded by thunderous applause from the audience. The first actor sang in such a deep bass, his voice seemed to shake the walls. When Andrew saw the smile on Mary’s face, he couldn’t help but feel pleased with himself. Her smile meant she was happy, surely. Some time during the second act, he reached over and took her hand in his. To his surprise, she didn’t pull it away. She let him hold her hand through the rest of the show, but he wondered if she was too engrossed to care.

Her smile was gone at the opera’s end, replaced by tear-stained cheeks.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “Why are you sad?”

“Not sad,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m happy. I loved it. I’ve never heard such beautiful voices in all my life, and I never thought I’d get to experience anything like this!” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Andrew.”

“It’s been my pleasure,” he said. “I shall strive to make you happy like this from now on.”

On their way back to the carriage, Mary thought she could feel her heart swell in her chest. When she stole a glance at Andrew, she knew exactly why her heart felt that way. Her affections for him were growing. Even if his charm and kindness were affectations, she was no longer safe against him. She was dangerously close to losing her heart. Even worse, she was dangerously close to losing her senses.

As they were riding back in the carriage, she tried to hand him his handkerchief. Andrew laughed and held up a hand. “No… please. Why don’t you keep it?”

“You don't want to touch it because it came in contact with my wet nose?” she asked with a chuckle. “I wasn’t crying
that
much, you know. I hardly ever cry.”

“Oh, really?”

“No. I’m not like Leona. She cries all the time.” Mary remembered how much she cried when she overheard Andrew insulting her, but she didn’t want to mention it. The night was perfect, and she didn’t want to spoil it.

“I hope her husband’s not the one giving her a reason to cry!” Andrew exclaimed. “If he is, I’ll have to have a word with Tristan!”

“Oh, please… don’t do that! His lordship seems like a perfect gentleman. I’m fairly certain he’s not the culprit of her sadness.”

“You, however, are the culprit of
my
sadness,” he said, moving to the other side of the carriage. He sat beside her, leaving hardly any space between them.

“How so?”

“You don’t like me,” he said with a sigh.

“That isn’t true!”

“You mean… you actually
do
like me?”

“Yes,” Mary said with a nod. “Very much so, actually.”

Andrew placed the tip of his finger on her forehead and ran his finger, slowly, above her brow and down her cheek. “I would give anything for a chance to unpin your hair from that dreadful bun.”

“Oh…” Mary touched the back of her head. “I-I don’t know about that.”

Andrew could see cracks in her resolve. He lifted one of Mary’s hands from her lap and brought it to his lips. He kissed the back of her hand—but he didn’t stop there. He rotated her hand so that her wrist was facing him, and he proceeded to rain kisses along her arm, all the way to her elbow. “I have dreams about what your hair would look like, draped across my pillow.”

She wanted to pull her arm away when he said that, but she couldn’t. She was literally immobilized by the feeling of his lips on her skin, and the tingle of his breath upon her. At the moment, she might as well have been a pool of liquid, melting around his feet.

“You have no idea how much I care about you, do you?”

Mary didn’t know if he wanted an answer, nor did she know the answer to his question, but she managed a weak nod.

“I want to be with you,” he said. “I want you. I
need
you.”

Her ears started to tingle, along with the rest of her body. He sounded more genuine than ever. She couldn’t believe a man like Andrew—a gentleman—would actually be interested in her! She’d refused to believe it for so long, but she was starting to think it was possible. She wanted so badly for his feelings to be real.

“I have a townhouse in London… no one’s lived there for a very long time. It’s almost embarrassing to let such a nice place go unused for so long,” he said. “I was thinking… you could give up being a maid and go to live there.”

“Live in a London townhouse,” she repeated the words, letting them sink in. “Would I live there… with you?”

“Well, I can’t exactly say I’d live there, but I’d try to spend as much time with you as I possibly could. I
want
to spend time with you. I promise you’d be well taken care of. I’d give you anything you’d want!”

Mary moved to the opposite side of the carriage and crossed her arms. The purpose of his proposition was becoming all too clear. “What exactly do you mean, Andrew?”

“What do I mean?” he asked with a chuckle. “Well… surely… I mean… surely I don’t have to come out and say it, do I?”

“You want me to be your mistress!”

When he heard the change in her tone of voice, he could feel his throat get dry. “Well… more or less… I mean… some men don’t care for their mistresses as much as I would care for you.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually proposing such a thing! What did you expect me to say?”

“What did you expect
me
to say?” Andrew returned the question. “I want to be with you, and if I’m not mistaken, you want to be with me too. How else could we be together, Mary? I don’t want to see you have to work as a maid anymore. I could give you so many things… I could offer you so much more.”

“How else could we be together?” Mary shrilled. “If you care about me as much as you claim, you could marry me!”

“Marry you?” he repeated with a chuckle. “You know I couldn’t marry you!”

Mary buried her face behind her hand and sucked in a breath. How could she be so stupid? This was turning out to be the most embarrassing night of her life after all! “Right… I should have known. How foolish of me.”

“I want to be with you!” he insisted. “Marriage is… well… it’s impossible, and it’s hardly necessary. If you were my mistress, I could give you everything. And you’d be my
only
mistress, of course. I’d be loyal to you.”

“Until you found a lady who was really worth marrying,” she added coldly.

“I’m not saying you’re not worthy of becoming my wife, but… you have to understand, there are certain expectations, and… well…”

“Marrying a maid wouldn’t meet them.”

He nodded.

“If you really cared about me, which I don’t think you ever did, then you could set those expectations aside,” Mary said, slowly lowering her hands from her face. “Asking me to be your mistress is an insult far worse than you could possibly imagine! What kind of girl do you think I am?”

“I apologize if I’ve hurt you, but I can honestly conceive of no other option. I’m wholly reliant on my father as my source of income. Do you know what he’d do if I married you? Do you have any idea?” Andrew asked. “He’d cut me off, that’s what he’d do!”

Mary thought about asking some silly question, such as,
would you rather be penniless and have me, or have your money and be without me
, but she didn’t. She was, after all, just a game to Andrew Lamb. She should have remembered what his true intentions were: she was just another challenge to be won. To be fair, Mary wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her, if not more. But if she agreed to be his mistress, how long would it last? His feelings clearly weren’t as genuine as hers were for him. He would discard her as soon as she gave into him, and her life would be ruined forever.

As much as she cared about him, the experience of being with him wasn’t worth it. Mary saw the effects a moment’s imprudence could have on a person’s life. Leona gave in to Lord Wintergreen, and it would be the biggest regret of her life. Mary didn’t want to have any regrets. She refused to be any man’s mistress.

“So… you won’t come to London with me?” he asked.

“Don’t you mean to ask, ‘you won’t be my mistress?’ You don’t have to put it lightly for me, Andrew. Just say it like it is!”

“You won’t be my mistress,” he repeated.

“No.”
“And there’s nothing I can say to get you to reconsider?”

“No more than I could get you to consider me for a wife,” she said. “But I must say, I understand your reason for not considering something so… extreme. I know you couldn’t marry a maid. It would be beneath you.”

“Mary…”

“No, really. I completely understand, Andrew. I really do. You could never marry me, and it’s fine. It’s not as if I ever expected you to, or expected you to
want
to!” She hated the fact that her voice was shaking as she spoke. “If you have any respect for me at all, you’ll leave me alone now. Please don’t pursue me
ever
again. Treat me with the same ambivalence you would show to Molly or Nell. Understand?”

He winced. “That’s really what you want? Really and truly?”

“Really and truly,” she answered firmly. To her relief, the carriage stopped in front of Bess’ cottage. “Thank you for a wonderful night, Mr. Lamb. Goodbye.”

She hopped from the carriage and hurried to her room. She tiptoed across the floor, so as not to wake Molly, and flung herself onto her bed.

And sobbed silently into her pillow.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Andrew didn’t want to take no for an answer, but she was leaving him with little choice. He had confessed his feelings as openly as he could, and her refusal was equally frank. He wondered, for the first time in his life, if he should throw up his arms and admit defeat.

Nevertheless, he hated the idea of parting on such a sour note. Somehow or another, he wanted to get back in Mary’s good graces. At the very least, maybe he could redeem himself enough that she would accept him as a friend? He wanted nothing more than to get Mary to accompany him to the art exhibition.

He knocked on the door and held his breath. He hadn’t seen her since the incident in the carriage, several hours ago. Maybe she’d had enough time to cool off since then?

The husky maid Molly opened the door. “Mister Lamb,” she uttered unenthusiastically. “Did you need something? Wait… you don’t even need t’answer that question. You’re here for Mary, aren’t you?”

He tried to peek over Molly’s shoulder to try to get a glimpse into the room, but he couldn’t see anything. She was tall, even taller than he was. “Yes, I’m here to see Mary. Is she here?”

“She dunnit want to see you,” Molly answered.

“She… doesn’t?”

“She’s feelin’ under the weather today, sir,” Molly went on. “She dunnit want to see anyone.”

He heard a softer, more feminine voice speaking from somewhere beyond Molly’s broad shoulders. “It’s alright, Molly. I’ll talk to him.”

“I thought you didn’t want to see him!”

“It’s alright,” Mary repeated. With a grunt, the leering giantess stepped aside. Molly’s long, red, braided hair nearly whacked Mary in the face as she turned away from the doorway.

With Molly out of the way, Andrew took a step forward. “Are you really feeling ill?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine.”

“That’s good to hear, because I was really hoping you’d consider going with me to the art exhibition,” Andrew said. “I know Leona would like to have you there as well.”

“Thank you for the invitation, but I’d rather not.”

“Are you sure? I hope you're not declining because you can’t stand to be in my company.”

“No, it has nothing to do with that,” Mary answered. “I just don’t have much interest in art.”

“Mary…” As he whispered her name, Andrew reached out and took her hand. “You can’t do this to me. Please give me another chance to prove I’m not as awful as you think I am. I know I said some things that… that might have offended you, but I see the error of my ways. I care about you. When I woke up this morning and I found the dress and the necklace I gave you sitting outside my door in a heap, it broke my heart. The anger in your eyes is torture to me. Please.”