His Mistress by Morning (2 page)

Flowers. And callers. And balls.

How she had dreamed of those things in the past few weeks, ever since she and her mother had received the letter from the solicitor announcing Great-aunt Ursula’s death and Charlotte’s inclusion in her will.

Sebastian reached for his bouquet, and Hermione held the blossoms back. “I think you are making a terrible mistake,” she told him, her nose wrinkled, as if the sweet flowers held all the appeal of a pile of horse droppings.

“Then it is mine to make,” he replied, taking his flowers and frowning at her interference.

“Whyever would you want that prosy Miss Burke when there are plenty of other ladies who would make a better choice?” At this, she nudged Charlotte forward. Again. Oh, there was nothing subtle about Hermione. “Miss Wilmont’s fortune will make Miss Burke’s ten thousand a year look paltry.”

The heat in Charlotte’s cheeks was nothing compared to the black pit knotted in her stomach.

“Hermione, please,” she whispered. “Don’t do this.”

The girl was not going to listen, not when she had a chance to cast anything up at her sensible and dull elder brother. “I declare by tomorrow Charlotte will be the most sought after young lady in London, especially now that she’s inherited—”

“A ring,” Charlotte sputtered. “All I received was a ring.”

That brought Hermione’s crowing to an abrupt end. “But your mother said you stood to inherit…”

Charlotte shook her head, the sting of tears bringing an even greater threat of humiliation.

First the disastrous news from the solicitor that Aunt Ursula’s storied fortune was nothing but a fiction, then her mother’s rage at being so deceived, so cheated, and now having to face it all yet again and in front of Sebastian, no less.

“But all our plans,” Hermione whispered, shooting a glance at her brother, then back at her friend. For a moment she wavered, but this was Hermione Marlowe, and she was always a veritable fountain of hope. “Is it a big ring? A large diamond perhaps, or a ruby or emerald? Just enough to buy the gown at Madame Claudius’s?”

Charlotte tugged reluctantly at her glove until it came off. She turned her face away as she held out her hand.

“’Tis lovely,” Hermione said, trying to sound cheerful as she inspected the odd little ring. She glanced up. “Are you sure there wasn’t more to your aunt’s bequest? Some property perhaps? An annuity the solicitor overlooked? Annuities are often overlooked, I’ve heard.”

Charlotte shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing but this ring.”

Her friend’s eyes grew moist with tears, the spring running over. “Oh, Charlotte, this is a tragedy. A horrible, wretched tragedy.” As a Marlowe, Hermione resorted to dramatics, pulling out her handkerchief and sobbing as if the lost fortune had been destined for her pockets.

Charlotte gulped, holding back her own tears. She’d done admirably well at the solicitor’s office, but now in front of Hermione, and in front of those wretched orange blossoms, it was terribly hard not to give over to a well-deserved spate of tears.

“Yes, well, if you will forgive me,” Sebastian said at all this overwhelming feminine display of emotion. He nodded to Charlotte, and then said to Fenwick, who until now had been standing near the stairs, ever at the ready to serve, “Tell my mother I will be dining with the Burkes, so do not expect me home.”

“You’re dining with them?” Hermione sputtered, this alarming news shocking her out of her distress over Charlotte’s loss. “Whatever for?”

“Because I was invited,” he told her. “And I like the company.”

Hermione made a sputtering noise, then collected herself enough to follow him. “Am I to suppose you are also going to their Venetian breakfast tomorrow as well?”

“Of course,” Sebastian told her. “You and Mother had better be there, and on time.” With that, he turned and opened the door.

“There you are!” said the woman standing on the front steps, her hand upraised as if she had been about to pull the bell.

Charlotte cringed.
Cousin Finella.

Because of their impoverished state, Charlotte and her mother, Lady Wilmont, lived with her mother’s cousin, Finella Uppington-Higgins. Finella had inherited the house years ago, and combined with the small amount Lady Wilmont received as Sir Nestor’s widow, it was just enough for three frugal women to scratch by on.

“When I couldn’t find you in the park, I suspected you might come
here
.” Finella sniffed and took a discerning and critical glance around the Marlowe foyer. When her gaze fell on the fertility statue near the salver, what little color she did possess drained from her pale
features, and she looked instantly away. A stickler for propriety, she thrust out her hand and said in a tight voice, “Come along, Charlotte. Your mother needs you at home. Now.”

Oh, Charlotte knew what that meant. Her mother was in high dudgeons and wanted an audience for her laments and agonies over Aunt Ursula’s broken promises.

Hermione leaned close and whispered softly, “I understand. Come back as soon as you can. We’ll find a way for you to have your heart’s desire.”

At this, Charlotte’s gaze flew not to her friend but over to Sebastian.

Her heart’s desire.
Holding orange blossoms for another woman. A woman, if gossip was correct, he would most likely marry.

Charlotte wondered what Cousin Finella—or, worse, her mother—would say if she let loose with her own loud and strident lament.

Probably have the same shocked reaction as the one Finella was exhibiting, for the lady’s gaze remained locked on Lord Walbrook’s prize cock sitting atop the chest of drawers.

A museum piece, he had written when he had sent it home from a South Seas island. As such, Lady Walbrook had dutifully and proudly displayed it without batting a lash at the impropriety of such a treasure.

From the narrow glint in Finella’s eyes, Charlotte had no doubt of her cousin’s opinion as to the earl’s treasure, and just exactly where it belonged.

“Charlotte, now!” the lady managed to choke out.

After shooting an apologetic glance at her friend, Charlotte allowed herself to be led down the steps.

“Good afternoon, Miss Wilmont,” Sebastian said as he strode past them, sidestepping an elderly street vendor tottering down the street with a basket clutched in her wrinkled hands.

“Flowers, milord?” she asked him. “For the young lady?”

“Um, no thank you, madam,” he said, holding up his own offering. “These should be quite adequate.”

“If you think so,” she said saucily, pushing her way past Finella and Charlotte and muttering under her breath. “Orange blossoms, bah!”

“Farewell, Lord Trent,” Charlotte whispered after him, feeling as if this was the last time she would ever see him. That wasn’t true; she’d probably see him again tomorrow, for she was forever coming over to see Hermione, but from now on she would have no more hope, no more dreams, no more wishes left when it came to Sebastian Marlowe, Viscount Trent.

“Good riddance,” Cousin Finella muttered. “What you see in that family I will never understand.”

Charlotte didn’t bother to reply. There was no use arguing with Cousin Finella—the lady had a very hard and narrow line of what was proper and what was correct, and any deviation, even the slightest hint of impropriety, was enough to propel even the loftiest of families from Cousin Finella’s good graces.

Not that anyone in the
ton
gave a whit as to what Finella Uppington-Higgins thought of them, but Finella continued to believe that she was the lone voice of decorum in London, and she went about her duties with the diligence of a Tower guard.

By this time in the afternoon, Berkeley Square was filled with carriages—happy couples, dashing rakes, and
carefree Corinthians making their way to the park for the afternoon promenade.

When an opening in traffic appeared, Finella was about to tug Charlotte across the street, that is until a devilishly fast curricle came racing through the throng.

Finella hauled Charlotte back, and when she spied the driver, she said, “Avert your eyes, child. It’s that
Fornett
woman.”

Charlotte did as she was bid, only because it afforded her another glance at Sebastian, who was nearly to the corner.

Some of the drivers shouted at Mrs. Fornett, decrying her madcap pace, but there were also whistles and catcalls from the more dashing men nearby.

For Mrs. Corinna Fornett was one of London’s most notorious courtesans, and her arrival, whether on the streets in her smart carriage and its infamous matched set of blacks or at her private box at the Opera House, always caused a stir.

And so it seemed, she also stirred Lord Trent. Charlotte watched in shock as the very proper and straitlaced viscount, the only Marlowe who never gave Society a moment of gossip, actually tipped his hat at this scandalous woman.

Admonition or no, Charlotte turned and looked back at Mrs. Fornett, if only to see what it was that had caught the viscount’s attention with such an uncharacteristic display.

The lady wore a red dress—a gown one certainly didn’t expect to see on the afternoon parade, but there she was like a vibrant peony set amongst a field of forget-me-nots. Atop her head sat a smart hat with jaunty plumes and a wide black ribbon that fluttered down her back.

While it would be easy to say that any woman who dressed in such an outlandish fashion in the middle of the afternoon would stop traffic, Charlotte spied right there and then why it was that Corinna Fornett held London’s men in her thrall.

She sat in the driver’s perch with her nose tipped up and her eyes alight at the mischief she was causing. The reins sat in her hands with an easy grace, belying the fact that her horses looked ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.

It wasn’t that Mrs. Fornett was a beautiful woman, for in truth she wasn’t that unlike Charlotte in coloring, with her brown hair and fair brow; rather it was the confidence with which she carried herself that set her apart from every other female on the street.

With the traffic parting before her, like Cleopatra making her entrance into Rome, Mrs. Fornett took her due as if it was her birthright, no matter that popular gossip held that she was the bastard daughter of a smuggler and a serving wench. Cousin Finella’s opinion or the petty gossip of matrons held no sway over the lady. She wasn’t cowed by propriety—rather quite the opposite. She let her notoriety and very improper reputation spread out before her like a wave.

Charlotte raised herself up a little bit straighter and took one last peek at Sebastian before he turned the corner.

He too was taking another appreciative look at Mrs. Fornett, until he glanced down at the flowers in his hand. The slight smile on his lips faded, and he turned to continue on toward Miss Burke’s.

If only,
Charlotte thought…If only, she wished…

I could be the woman he loved.

For a moment, all the hubbub and clatter of the street faded away, leaving Charlotte in a swirling void. The ring on her finger grew oddly warm, and a wave of dizziness swept over her.

She swayed and teetered on the uneven cobbles.
Dear heavens, whatever is wrong?
For the first time in her life, she thought she was going to faint.

“There now,” Finella said with a bit of uncharacteristic concern in her voice. She took Charlotte’s arm and steadied her. “You’ve had a trying day as well, I imagine. Poor child. Come home, and once your mother is done with her wailing, we’ll make the best of all this. There is nothing else that can be done.”

The finality of her words snapped Charlotte out of her odd reverie. And then just as quickly as the odd sensations had overcome her, they were gone and once again, London came alive around her, and there was nothing left to do but fall in step beside Finella and hurry home.

To her dull life, and to a future with no hope of love.

Meanwhile, the old woman selling flowers paused. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she whispered after Charlotte. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

May 10, 1810
A Thursday of Some Note

W
hen Charlotte awoke the next morning, she could feel the warmth of the sun on her face, but she kept her eyes closed, if only to avoid facing the day for a few moments more.

Her mother had spent the entire evening decrying Aunt Ursula’s cruelty, lamenting how the ancient lady had led them on for years about Charlotte’s supposedly priceless inheritance, and then leaving her just a small, worthless ring.

Lady Wilmont had even gone so far as to demand the object of her distress from her daughter, with every intention of consigning the mocking bit of gold to the fire. But oddly enough, Charlotte had been unable to pull it from her finger. The little ring, despite a good bit of soap and lard, had remained on her hand as if only to vex Lady Wilmont further. So Charlotte, at Cousin Finella’s quiet
urging, had sought out her bed and taken refuge in a night of dreamless sleep.

She stretched a little, wishing she could spend the entire day in the drowsy warmth of her bed, that is until she stretched a little further under the covers and her toes bumped into something warm and solid.

And alive, for it moved and stretched right along beside her.

“O-o-o-oh!” she gasped, her eyes springing open.

Then, just as suddenly, her shock over finding something, or rather, someone, in her bed gave way to a newfound horror—she wasn’t in her own bed.

And this certainly wasn’t her room.

She blinked and gaped at her opulent surroundings, perhaps more stunned by the unfettered wealth around her—red brocade curtains, gold fringed swags, red and white chinoiserie paper on the walls—than by the fact that there was someone sharing her bed.

Her bewildered gaze fell on an enormous, gilt-framed painting of a naked woman who looked vaguely familiar. Why, if she didn’t know better, it was a portrait of—

“Lottie?” murmured a deep, sleepy voice beside her. “Lottie, my love, where are you?” A thick masculine arm wound around her waist and tugged her under the coverlet and into his warm embrace.

Suddenly she was surrounded by the scent of bay rum and an air of something else, a deeply masculine essence that tugged at her senses, enticed her to inhale deeply, and beckoned her closer.

“Mmmm, there you are,” he said as he nuzzled at her neck, while one of his hands found her breast, his fingertips brushing over her nipple.

“Good heavens!” she cried, struggling to escape his
grasp, to wiggle free of this wretched tangle even as he pulled her further under the covers and rolled atop her, covering her with his, dare she say it,
naked
body.

And he wasn’t the only one who had no clothes on. Her nightrail was missing. Which meant…

The heat of a devastating blush rose from her bare toes to the rosy tips of her…Charlotte shuddered, panic setting in as this blackguard continued to stroke her with no regard for propriety.

At least she could be thankful for the coverlet over them, so she couldn’t see this shameless man. And she did her best to ignore a tiny errant and very suggestive thought that “just one peep” wouldn’t hurt.

No!
she chastened herself, clinging to every lesson in self-control she’d ever learned from Cousin Finella. What she needed to do was muster enough courage to cry out, set up an alarm, but even as she drew in the necessary breath, his lips captured hers in a kiss.

Not a kiss like she’d imagined—soft and gentle, full of loving tenderness and honorable intentions—but one that claimed her as if it was his right, his due.

Hungry and avid, seeking and taking.

So much so that when his tongue swept over her lips, teased her and taunted her to open up to him, a delicious thrill ran down her spine.

Like a memory of something she had no right to claim, and every bit as dark and dangerous and persistent as Mother and Cousin Finella had once whispered about—but without all the rest of their dire admonitions about “painful” and “dreadful” and “turgid deviltry.”

No, her body reveled in a hazy warmth that made her languid and restless all at once.

Oh, heavens, what was wrong with her? She needed
to escape this man immediately. Balling up her fists, she pummeled at his wide shoulders, tried twisting out from beneath him, but her efforts only garnered rough laughter.

“Lottie,” he growled into her ear, in a voice both familiar and sensual, “are you in one of
those
moods this morning? Hmmm. Whatever the lady wants.”

Lottie? Why did he keep calling her that? And whatever did he mean by “one of those moods”?

She all too quickly found out.

Suddenly her arms were trapped over her head and his hips pinned her to the mattress. Then his mouth crashed over hers and he kissed her again. This time with a savage hunger that frightened her.

“There you are, my little wildcat,” he said between kisses. “I know how to tame you. Wait and see that I don’t.”

She wasn’t about to wait and see anything this ruffian had in mind. Charlotte pulled her wits together enough to find the air to scream for help. But even as she drew in a deep breath, his lips took possession of one of her nipples, sucking the tip into his mouth and letting his tongue whirl over the surface until it was pebbled and tight.

His kiss, his touch had bewildered her innocent senses, but this, this feeling he drew from her as easily as one might pluck a daisy, sent a shock wave of desire through her that rocked her virtue right off its foundation.

And her desperate cry turned into a gasp of surprise.

“Ah, yes, little Lottie, I know what you like,” he told her as he moved from one breast to the other and began working his hypnotic magic over again. Then he shifted again until something hard and insistent thrust against her thighs, between her legs.

And here all these months she’d thought the Earl of Walbrook’s South Seas prize had just been a grand exaggeration of male endowment.

No, having now been presented with solid evidence, she realized there was some truth in her mother’s dire warning of “turgid deviltry.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, he’d caught her hip with another hand—gads, how many limbs did this fellow possess—and tugged her closer to him.

Closer? He wanted to get closer?

Indeed he did, for he shifted yet again, pushing the tip of his manhood so it dove deeper toward…her very ruination (as if waking up naked with a man wasn’t enough).

Yet in his efforts to completely ravage her, she realized he’d let go of her arms, released her hands as he’d caught hold of her hips, and was even now steering a course she had no intention of undertaking—no matter that her body seemed quite willing as her hips arched upward, seeking out his offering with a mind of their own.

She caught the top of the coverlet and yanked it down, only to find herself blinded by the sunlight streaking through the gauzy window covering.

Charlotte blinked and shook her head until the red curtains came into focus, then the oddly familiar painting across the room. Then, and only then, was she able to look up at the face of her assailant.

A man she knew only too well.

“Lord Trent?!” she cried out.

His face split into a wide grin. “You’re further along than I thought, if you’re calling my name already,” he said, as if it were a grand joke. “But you needn’t be so
formal, Lottie, my love. A rousing ‘Sebastian! Oh, now, Sebastian!’ will suffice.”

He swept down to kiss her again, his hips moving perilously toward her ruination as they thrust down to meet hers.

Lord Trent. Naked. Atop her. Calling her Lottie?

’Tis all a dream,
she told herself, and for a split second that logic gave her some reassurance. Yet, honestly, whenever in her dreams had Lord Trent suckled at her breasts, as he was doing now, or ever in her imagination had his fingers raked through the curls…
down there
…her thighs parting willingly before him, allowing him to stroke her expertly with an intimacy that sent mesmerizing bolts of pleasure racing through her?

When in any dream had his fingertip rolled over the nub hidden there? How could a dream lover know about that place when she barely knew of its existence?

Oh, heavens, this was no dream.

She struggled out of his grasp, towing a bit of sheet with her.

“What do you think you are doing, my lord?”

“I thought I was doing you a favor.” He grinned, wickedly, rakishly. “Doing us both a favor, if you know what I mean.” He started to crawl toward her, crossing the expanse she had hoped would deter him.

“Stop right there,” she ordered with as much force as she could muster pointing at an imaginary boundary in the sheets. “My lord, I don’t know how it is that you are here, or how I am here, but I will not—”

She was cut off when his hand snaked under the linens, caught her by the ankle, and tugged her back into his embrace.

“You had too much wine last night,” he teased. “It’s made you cantankerous this morning.” He nuzzled her neck again and said in a thick voice, “Let me wake you up properly.”

His fingers went back to work teasing a path toward her cleft, and that delicious tempting warmth started to cloud her reason….

Oh, Sebastian! Now, Sebastian…

Whatever was she thinking? Charlotte’s reason clamored back to the forefront and she found the wherewithal to scramble out of his grasp once again. “What do you think you are doing?”

“I told you, I’m waking you up.”

“Like this?” She tugged the sheet higher.

He shrugged, that wicked grin tilting his lips yet again. Her boundary line wavered in the face of such temptation.

So Charlotte chose a new line of defense. She closed her eyes.

“Demmit!” he sputtered.

The mattress tipped beneath her, and her eyes flew open, only to find that all the nakedness she’d
felt
was now outside the bed and on display.

Sebastian Marlowe. Naked. Why, it was scandalous!

Gloriously so, she found herself thinking until her sense of propriety snapped her eyes shut again and she shuttered her vision with both hands.

Not that he seemed to care about propriety in the least. “Demmit! Demmit! Demmit!” he was muttering. “I’m going to be late to the Burkes’ Venetian breakfast. And you know that old codger, he’s a stickler for punctuality.”

She stole a peek between her fingers, only to find him bent over and sorting clothes, tossing a pair of breeches,
white shirt, and a rumpled cravat on the bed. Her hands dropped away from her eyes and her mouth fell open.

He strode across the room, utterly and completely naked, as if such an arrangement between them was commonplace.

Had a man ever been crafted so flawlessly? She’d spent enough time at his Berkeley Square house, stolen enough glances at the earl’s notorious art collection to know that this Marlowe was a magnificent example of manly perfection.

A lean, solid torso sat atop long, muscled legs. His arms and shoulders, the ones she’d so impotently tried to fight, seemed an impervious expanse. Her fingers curled up and then stretched, and the memory of his steely flesh against her left her quivering anew.

“Where the devil are my…” he said, looking left and right. “Ah, there they are.” He plucked a pair of boots out from beneath a chair, then reached for his breeches. With them tugged on, and his shirt tossed over his head, he then examined his cravat, frowning at its wrinkled state. Holding it out for her inspection, he asked, “Do you think Finella would press this?”

Finella? Why, if her Cousin Finella were to see her thusly, see him—well, ironing would be the least of their concerns. The poor woman would fall over with a fatal case of vapors.

“What do you think?” he asked again, shaking the poor limp cloth. “Wager she’s up? Most likely not. She looked rather foxed when I arrived last night.”

Charlotte could only shake her head. Foxed? Cousin Finella drunk? Had the entire world gone mad?

He shook it out again and examined it. “Eh, you’re most likely right. It’s probably not worth risking her tart
tongue to get her to do it, especially if she’s still jug-bitten.”

He finished getting dressed and threw himself back onto the bed, gathering Charlotte into his arms and kissing her soundly. “Have a splendid day, my love.” He paused and looked into her eyes, a moment of concern crossing his features. “Are you well this morning?”

“I don’t feel like myself,” she managed to whisper.

His hand cupped her chin. “Not having second thoughts about me, are you?”

More like a thousand and one thoughts, none of which made sense. Still, she managed to shake her head.

He grinned and got up. “Tonight we’ll make sure of that. After the opera. You’ll be there, won’t you?” He tugged on his jacket. “The sight of you in your box will make a predictably dull evening bearable. I’ll be devising the perfect seduction for later. Think of that as the second act drones on.” He plopped a kiss on her brow and ruffled her hair. “Wear blue, and don’t you dare arrive with Rockhurst, you contemptible little vixen. You know what the sight of you with him does to me.” He strode to the door. “Then again, maybe that’s why you like to flaunt him before me.” He winked and was gone.

Charlotte didn’t know how long she sat there staring at the closed door through which he’d departed.

Lord Trent. Kissing her. Naked.

She went over the events slowly, trying to make sense of them.

Lottie, my love.

Wake you up properly.

Oh, now Sebastian!

Wear blue.

She heaved a large sigh and looked around the rich room trying to find some clue as to where she was and how she’d arrived in this puzzle.

For some reason, her gaze fell on the large painting she’d spied earlier, the one of the naked woman reclining on a sofa.

The familiar-looking lady.

Charlotte tentatively got down out of the high bed, catching up a blue silk wrapper that lay negligently tossed on the floor. She pulled it on as quickly as possible and did her best to ignore the fact that it fit as if it had been made for her. Then she padded softly and cautiously across the room.