Maggie Robinson - Mistress by Mistake

Her mama always said not to borrow trouble. There was no point in worrying herself when there was absolutely nothing she could do but wait. And anyway, she was old, well past her prime as a woman. She had the silver hairs slithering like snakes on her head to prove it.

She returned Bay’s letters to the empty drawer and sat at her dressing table with a hand mirror. Gritting her teeth, she began yanking out every one of the coarse gray hairs that had plagued her for the past ten years. If only it were so simple to uproot her fears. And her desires.

Monsieur David had recovered sufficiently to present him with a raft of palatable delicacies for his dinner. Bay had taken his time digesting, one eye fixed upon the case clock in his study. For good measure, he unpocketed his pocket watch at intervals and double-checked the time. When he was satisfied at last that Charlie should be sleeping, he stretched, rolled down his sleeves, and put his jacket back on. He left the desk in its disordered fashion, ledger books and pens strewn on the surface; he could set it to rights tomorrow when he returned from Jane Street. He had waited long enough.

The evening was mild, the skies clear, the walk was short. Spring had come to fashionable London in bursts of flowering trees and blooms in window boxes. Bay took a deep breath of night air, inhaling the sweet smell of flowers, so different from the miasma of other parts of the city. Like a naughty boy, he plucked a lilac branch from behind an iron fence, then a few buds from a stone pot that flanked some nob’s doorstep. Armed with his improvised bouquet, he would lay it on Charlie’s pillow in a few minutes.

His cock twitched impatiently. Miss Charlotte Fallon had an unpredictable effect on him, despite her fusty caps and tart tongue. And while she was far from the strumpet he first thought her, she had proved to me a very satisfactory bed-mate. If he ever ran into Robert Chase again, he’d thank him before he planted him a facer. To the best of his knowledge, Bay had never taken a woman’s virginity. He supposed he must when he married again, and the prospect did not fill him with any particular thrill.

But he was sure he’d manage it better than Robert Chase.

Poor Charlie. Seduced and abandoned. Robert was married now, to a viscount’s pretty daughter who had been possessed of a good dowry. Quite a step up for a simple country solicitor. The offices Robert shared with his father were far grander now, as was their clientele. Bay had attended the wedding with his grandmother a few years ago, more as friends of the bride’s father than the groom. The elder Chase had served Grace Bayard well enough in local affairs. He wondered if Robert’s wife knew of her husband’s dishonorable use of his childhood sweetheart. Robert had never once uttered Charlie’s name in his presence during their years at school together, but he had bragged long and at length of his other conquests. He must not have had anything yet to brag about with Charlotte Fallon.

Bay again marveled that he had never stumbled across the Fallon sisters. They had lived not twenty miles away from Bayard Court. Of course his old friend George, Viscount Harfield, had stolen Deborah right out of the schoolroom ten years ago, while Bay was busy battling Napoleon’s forces in Spain. As a youth, he might have passed Charlotte on market day in Dorchester and never noticed-he’d only had eyes for Anne then anyway.

But now he definitely had eyes for Charlie, his very unlikely mistress. He was in hopes he could persuade her to remain in that position for a while yet, for as long as it was mutually agreeable to both of them. Bay was confident he held more attraction than Little Hyssop, whose very name was ridiculously prosaic. Despite her best intentions, Charlotte was more poetry than prose, her curvy body a heavenly cushion of carnality. Yes, Deborah was to be congratulated on her marriage and leaving him her sister in his bed.

His thoughts were entirely focused on what he planned to do with Charlie within the next hour. He didn’t hear the stealthy shuffle behind him, but could not ignore the three large men who blocked his path as he rounded the corner on Jane Street. Surely hiring three night watchmen was a bit of overkill. None of them was familiar, either. He hoped he wouldn’t be dragged off by his ear. He most urgently needed to see Charlie.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said, his voice breezy. “I’m Sir Michael Bayard. Number Eight.”

“Evenin’, guv. Sorry about your whore. We got other plans for you tonight.”

Bay opened his mouth, but the crack to the back of his skull made argument difficult. He pitched forward, grabbing at the lapels of one of the toughs, taking him down to the pavement.

“’Ere now!”

The man smelled of tobacco and ale and serious body odor. Bay couldn’t quite get his hands around his throat, but his fists seemed to be working. Knowing he was outnumbered and outfoxed, he rolled off and tried to stand up, only to be clubbed down again. His last sight was a pair of scuffed boots before a hood came down to cover his face. When he was hit for the third and final time, his world became permanently dark.

The gray morning light revealed to him that he was in a rather shabby bedroom. Naked. Tied to a bed.

The irony was not lost on him. How on earth had Charlie managed to hire those goons and teach him this lesson? He had apologized to her. A sincere apology. As far as he knew she had no access to any funds, unless she had promised one of the paintings as payment once he was safely out of the way. From his brief impression of them, they did not seem like art collectors. And how had she time to make these nefarious plans, when he had kept her so busy in bed over the past few days?

She must not have been ‘waiting like an idiot’ last night but deep in league with the bastards who had given him such a headache. Bay wrinkled his forehead and could feel the dried blood pulling tight against his skin. Charlie Fallon was a bloodthirsty little bitch. How could he have let himself be deceived by her? His first instincts had proved correct.

The whole while these thoughts were jumbling through his head, he strained against his bonds. The rope was nothing like the silken cords he used on Charlie, but rough hemp that cut into his wrists and ankles. He would have cried out, but the filthy rag that gagged him make anything but muffled grunts impossible.

No doubt the little minx thought she was clever to torture him thus. She underestimated him. He’d been a prisoner of the French for a mercifully short week, and they had not taken kindly to his activities before he was captured. It was true he bore no outward physical scars from that encounter, but his injuries were nevertheless acute enough for him to be invalided home for a while-just long enough to be nearly dispatched more efficiently by Anne’s husband. Bay had been foolish enough to see if after all the humiliation he’d suffered if his manhood was still intact, and Anne was as ever his partner of choice. The whole affair had been hushed up, though the mark on Bay’s face was a daily reminder of his foolishness.

By his estimate, he had been unconscious for four or five hours at least. More than a blow to the head had probably been applied. He inhaled deeply, wondering what he had been subjected to that incapacitated him, and hoped that his body was free of any drug. He bit into the rag, tasting its vileness, but didn’t detect poison. He wasn’t dead yet. But Charlie Fallon would be swinging from a noose as soon as he freed himself from his own ropes.

He squinted around the room, looking for anything that might be put to use to get himself out of here. His clothes were nowhere in sight, nor were there any useful guns or swords mounted on the stained brown wallpaper. It seemed he was left with his wits, scattered as they were, and his furious desire to escape. They would have to be enough.

The house was dead quiet. Bay listened hard for any noise of the neighborhood, but the shutters appeared to be nailed closed. There was absolutely nothing for him to do but lie here and wait.

Frazier would know something was amiss when he didn’t come home. Even if his batman thought Bay was with Charlie, he would eventually trot round to Jane Street for some gossip with Mrs. Kelly and a piece of her famous strawberry pie. There were bills and business to attend to. Bay had left a very atypical mess on his desk last night that Frazier would notice immediately. If Charlie was still in residence, Frazier would frighten her into telling him the truth about his whereabouts.

But Charlie had probably bunked it, leaving her henchmen in charge. Bay devoutly hoped they hadn’t forgotten about him, leaving him to lie in his own squalor for days, if not forever. This would be a most unpleasant and embarrassing way to die, trussed up like a plucked Christmas goose in a dirty oven.

He’d only kept Charlie tied up for a few hours, if one didn’t count their raspberry fool interlude. If she was aiming for parity, he would already have been released. And as far as he knew, no dessert of any kind had been applied to his body. In fact, he was getting rather hungry.

Being a practical man, he shut his eyes against the feeble rays of light. As a soldier, he’d learned to sleep under the most primitive of conditions, hungry or not. This imprisonment would rank above a wet Spanish ditch, he reckoned. At least he was on a mattress, musty as it was. He’d need his rest before facing his jailors. If they came.

Charlotte rose early, wandering about the house as the morning drizzled on. The day was as gray as her spirits. She missed Bay, and when he got back, their liaison would be over. He would bring her home in the most discreet fashion, she was sure. He wouldn’t drop her in the middle of the Little Hyssop green from his shiny new carriage. Probably trusty Frazier would be deputized for the last leg of their journey, in some conservative vehicle, Mrs. Kelly or Irene along for the ride for propriety’s sake. Her neighbors would be agog anyway. Charlotte wondered what she would tell them about her visit with her sister that wouldn’t betray her with suspicious blushes.