Maggie Robinson - Mistress by Mistake

Good lord. She was actually batting her eyelashes, one finger tracing the neckline of her black gown. Surely she was showing too much daytime décolletage for a grieving widow.

Bay felt almost as though he were seeing her as she was for the first time. She was no longer the artless young widow he’d married and loved so desperately. Nor was she his erotic fantasy come to life after months sleeping on the ground and getting shot at. She was still beautiful, but he simply didn’t feel the tug to his soul and his groin today that he always had. Could it be he’d finally come to his senses at last? Her years of reeling him in and tossing him back may have come to an end.

“You could have written. Then I could have written back telling you I have an appointment. In Hyde Park.”

Right on cue Frazier blustered in. “Major, you’ve got an urgent message. There’s no time to waste! You’ll have to excuse him, Lady Whitley. I’ll see you out.”

Anne looked from one to the other of them and burst into a peal of laughter. “Oh, you two! Just like a French farce. You’ll not fob me off with this nonsense. I’m not going anywhere, Frazier, and neither is Sir Michael until I’ve had my say. Go lurk somewhere else.”

Frazier was brick red, but left, shutting the door with an ominous thud. Bay thought the walls were still vibrating as he lifted an eyebrow at his former wife. “It’s for your own good, you know. You’re risking your reputation to be here in a gentleman’s establishment. Whitley’s only been dead two months. Even if you’ve decided to become a fast widow, you’re too fast for the ton.”

“How sweet of you to care. You were ever discreet while you cuckolded Whitley. But he knew all about us anyway.”

“Because you told him, Anne. To torture us both. I told you the last time we met that we were done.”

Anne focused on her lap, smoothing the fabric of her dress. “Yes, you did. But I read in the paper this morning your new mistress is now married. How did that come about? You had such great plans for her, as I recall.” She raised her eyes and smiled sweetly.

Bay should have known the announcement in the Times would be of interest to her. He relived the shouting match they’d had at the end of their affair in his mind, when he’d bragged about securing Deborah Fallon’s services.

“Don’t worry about me, my dear. I’ve made other arrangements already.” Bay went to the drinks table and poured himself a whisky. He did not offer one to his guest.

“My, you work fast. Who is the lucky girl this time?” There was an edge to her voice that Bay found quite gratifying. It was well past her turn to be jealous.

“No one you’ve heard of.” He took a sip of the amber liquid. He certainly wasn’t going to explain the mix-up with Deborah and her sister.

“Does this one look like me too?”

Bay put the glass down with a clack. He was well aware he had a ‘type,’ a preference for fair-skinned women with jet hair and blue eyes. He’d told himself it was just a matter of taste, like choosing a raspberry over a strawberry. He preferred raspberries. Some gentlemen preferred blondes. He had been attracted to Anne because of her coloring, and did not choose his mistresses because they resembled his not-quite wife.

“Still keeping tabs on me, Anne?” He stuffed his hands in his pockets to control the shaking.

“Well, you’ve hardly lived a secret life since you acquired the house on Jane Street. Everyone knows your business there, and who you do it with. Jane Street gentlemen are the envy of everyone. And that’s really why I’m here. I have a proposition for you.”

“Make it quick. I really do have an appointment.” With the glass on the table and the bottle next to it. Anne made him want to get foxed in the very worst way.

“When I lost our baby, I was crushed, Bay. A child would have made my marriage bearable.”

“Not for the child.” If Whitley had been cruel to Anne, he would have made Bay’s son or daughter’s life a living hell. It was for the best that Anne miscarried before she even knew she was enceinte.

“I would have done anything to protect your son, Bay. But it was not to be.” She sighed, looking her age for the first time this afternoon. “I wanted a child then and I want one now. Whitley was apparently incapable. But I know you are not.”

Bay’s throat was dry. “What are you saying?”

“I’m asking you to help me. I want a baby, Bay, before I’m too old.”

The room spun a bit. “You’re mad!”

“Am I? I’m to be thrown out of the Abbey into the Dower House. Again. And it’s in worse repair than it was thirteen years ago, when Clarence thought he inherited. Apparently, his wife finds me as much a distraction this time around as she did the last. I have no intention of living in that poky hovel this winter. I thought I might travel. While I’m abroad, I’ll adopt a foundling to keep me company. Your child, Bay. Something we made together to remind us of what once was.”

Bay picked up the whisky, draining the glass in one long swallow. “You can marry again once your year of mourning is over. Have a child with your new husband. It won’t be me.”

“I’m not asking you to marry me, Bay.” Her lips twisted. “In truth, I wish to be no man’s wife ever again.”

“Not every man is Whitley, Anne.” Whitley had become somewhat unhinged when he discovered the young wife he expected to be waiting for him had already remarried. He had survived a shipwreck, illness, and the perils of Africa, but could not survive the loss of his pride. Anne had suffered as much as Bay, if not more. It had changed her, although it had taken Bay years to see it.

She rose from the scarlet-striped sofa and picked up a feathery black bonnet. “Think about it.” She tied the black ribbons under her chin. “You know where to find me. If you agree, I promise to never bother you again once we’ve achieved our objective.”

When she left, he collapsed back into his chair. She was insane. She had to be. He was not a stallion to be put out to stud. And she was too smart to think he could simply father a child and walk away. Once she had known his every thought. He wondered if he had ever known hers at all.

After they had been forcibly separated, Anne had wanted to have her cake and eat it too. For years, Bay had begged her to run away with him. What was one more chapter to their book of scandal? They could have made a new life in the Americas, or settled quietly by the sea in Dorset again. But she was a viscount’s wife and mistress of Whitley Abbey. In the grand scheme of things, Bay was just a good fuck.

Frazier entered the room, plopping down on the sofa as if he owned it. In a way, he did. Bay would not be here without him.

“I see you’ve still got your clothes on.”

“Not for long if Anne gets her way,” Bay mumbled.

“Well, you’re a fine figure of a man. She’d have to be blind not to notice. But it’s time you looked to your future, not your past. Settle down. Have some bairns.”

“Have you been talking to Mr. Mulgrew?”

Frazier was the picture of innocence. “Why, yes. I told you he came to see you earlier.”

“As it happens, you and Mr. Mulgrew and even Lady Whitley all have something in common.”

“And what is that?”

“Mr. Mulgrew has advised me to marry. Lady Whitley just wants me to have a bairn.”

Frazier drew his wild red eyebrows together. “I beg your pardon?”

“Lady Whitley is feeling the urge for motherhood. Apparently, I’m to be the father.”

Frazier leaped up. “Never say you’ll be marrying that woman! She’s not good for you, Major! Oh, I grant she’s an eyeful and an armful, but you want someone better than that. Someone who will stick by you and be true, not toy with your affections. Forgive me for speaking my mind-”

“As if I could stop you.”

“-but that woman is not nice. Oh, she may have been when she was a girl and you married her. But look how she’s treated you over the years, blowing hot and cold. Using you to punish her husband. Why, the man practically killed you once! And still, you went back every time she lifted her little finger.”

“I loved her,” Bay said simply. “She was my wife, no matter what the legalities were.”

“Och, you loved what she did to your pecker. You were just a boy. What did you know about love? And then when you stared down death at every turn, it’s no wonder you sought some comfort. But you’ve a fine life now, and a pretty new mistress from what I hear, though Mrs. Kelly says this one’s a bit of a thief. You really do need a wife, sir. Someone to save you from designing women.” Frazier paused to take a deep breath, but Bay had a feeling he was not done. “You’re a smart lad. A good catch. You served your country well. The old scandal has died down by now. If you spent more time at parties and such and less time on Jane Street, I imagine you could catch yourself a wife by Christmas.”

“I am touched by your confidence, Frazier. And who might this paragon be?”

His servant gave him a cheeky grin. “A blonde. With big brown eyes.”

Charlotte sat in the late morning sun, Bay’s letters in her lap. He had not come to her last night, even though she had put on one of Deb’s provocative dresses and waited with a saucy, mistressy expression on her face. His valet, Frazier, a short red rooster of a man, had delivered Bay’s regrets in person, keeping his flinty gray eyes firmly on her face and not her bosom. He seemed to be checking her out anyway, then disappeared down to the kitchen to visit with Mrs. Kelly. By the time he was done, he’d know all about her ill-fated scheme to flee Jane Street. And how very wicked his employer was to tie her up and ravish her with raspberry fool.

Charlotte felt an unfamiliar ache of desire. She knew she should not like this captivity, but it was growing on her. Just like a pimple on her arse, it was inflamed and uncomfortable, yet she could not remove it.