The Accidental Mistress Read online

  “Yes, but—”

  “No buts. Until you made your discovery that I was a virgin, you saw no problem in pursuing me. Or were you always planning to offer marriage once you’d claimed me for a bed partner?”

  Fairly caught, he shot her a rueful look, then glanced away.

  “Just as I suspected,” she said. “Seems rather hypocritical to me that you feel honor-bound to wed me because I was a virgin, but were happy to enjoy my favors with impunity had I actually been experienced as you assumed.”

  “I never thought you were experienced; well, not in more than the basics, anyway.”

  She decided to ignore the observation. “Widows have affairs all the time, Ethan. You know that as well as I. Even if rumors start, no one will think much about it, especially if there is no direct evidence.”

  “You mean such as getting caught during a party shagging on the sofa in the host’s library?” His lips quirked in a wry grin.

  “Just so. And I do not want to know if you took that example from your own personal experience.”

  He showed his teeth in a grin. “Not mine. A friend’s.”

  She wasn’t sure she believed him, but it didn’t matter. “Anyway, you see my point, which is that as kind and honorable as your offer may be, and however much I appreciate the intent, neither of us wishes to marry.”

  A peculiar distance shone in his gaze, a melancholy she could not fathom. “No,” he murmured, “you are right in that.”

  “Good. Let me say thank you, my lord, but no thank you, and leave it at that.”

  He did not reply for a long moment. “Very well, if you are sure.”

  “Yes, very sure.”

  But even as the tension eased from her frame, a wholly inexplicable sadness rushed in to fill the void. Ruthlessly, she brushed it away.

  “So what next, then?” He stroked a hand over her bare arm.

  Yes, what next?

  She knew what she wanted and that was him. But continuing what they had started tonight would surely prove to be a mistake. Would it not?

  “What is next is that we should get some sleep; then we will return to London come morning.”

  “And after that?”

  “I do not think there should be anything after that. Tonight was lovely, more than lovely, but it ought to be left here at this inn.”

  His hand stopped and tightened against her skin. “What if I disagree?”

  “Then I would ask you to change your mind.”

  Locking his gaze with hers, he stared. Suddenly, as if making up his mind, he leaned up and pulled her under him.

  “Well,” he growled. “If tonight is all I am to have of you, then I want to take the fullest advantage.” Reaching down, he pulled off her shift, then cupped his hands around her breasts. “For now you are still mine.”

  Crushing her mouth beneath his own, he kissed her with a passion that demanded her complete surrender. Threading her fingers into his hair, she gave it eagerly.

  The following afternoon, Lily slid the tines of her nuncheon fork into a piece of perfectly poached salmon and lifted the bite to her lips.

  “I called on you yesterday,” Davina remarked from the other side of the Coateses’ smaller dining-room table. The two women were alone in the family wing of the house, Lord Coates having departed hours ago for Parliament. “Your butler told me you had gone out driving. With the marquis again, I presume?”

  Lily was glad she had already swallowed the food in her mouth or else she feared she might have choked. Reaching for her wineglass, she drank a slow, steadying amount. Taking her time, she returned the long-stemmed goblet to the linen-draped table. “Yes, another lesson. I thought I had mentioned I would be away.”

  Davina ate a forkful of scalloped potatoes, swallowing politely before she spoke. “You did. I merely assumed you would have returned by four in the afternoon. I had some pretty buttons I found at one of the Bond Street shops on which I wanted your opinion.”

  Inwardly, Lily winced. “I am sorry I had not yet arrived home. I should like to see the buttons. Why do you not show them to me now?”

  “I will go get them as soon as we are finished with our repast.”

  Lily stabbed a slice of crisp cucumber, hoping Davina would take the hint and change the subject.

  “So where did you go?”

  Lily stabbed the cucumber again, leaving behind a series of tiny holes identical to those inflicted by her first bit of violence upon the vegetable. “When?”

  “With the marquis, of course. Surely you did not spend all that time driving around the city.”

  She stabbed a piece of yellow tomato this time. “We went to Richmond.”

  Davina paused with her fork in midair, her eyes bright with interest. “Did you? How was the journey?”

  “The journey went well. I drove.”

  “All that distance?”

  She nodded. “My final lesson at curricle driving.”

  “Once you arrived, what then?”

  Then we spent the night at an inn, where I had my first real lesson at making love.

  Tamping down an invisible shiver, Lily struggled to put the memories aside, a difficult task since she had awakened in Ethan’s arms only that morning. Already, those moments seemed so long ago, as though a lifetime had passed.

  “We drove to Richmond Park.”

  “And?”

  “And we had a lovely picnic, at least until the bee.”

  “There was a bee?”

  Blast my mouth! Lily cursed, fearing she’d said too much.

  “Yes, a yellow jacket,” she offered. “The nasty creature crawled down the marquis’s cravat and stung him. He had a reaction and fell ill.”

  Davina’s eyes widened. “How dreadful! Is he all right?”

  “Oh, yes, he is perfectly well now, though I am sure he would appreciate it if you were to say nothing of the incident.”

  “Not to worry, my lips are sealed. So you drove him straight back to town?”

  Lily cut the tomato in half, then abandoned her fork on the plate. “No, we stopped at an inn, where a physician was called.”

  “My goodness. Well, that explains why you were so late returning,” Davina concluded.

  “Precisely.” Lily crossed her fingers in her lap, praying her friend would not inquire about the exact hour of her arrival home, since Ethan had dropped her at her townhouse just a few minutes after eight o’clock this morning.

  “Well, what an adventure, I must say!” Davina commented, eating another bite of fish. “I suppose that is also why I did not see you at the Islings’ soiree last night.”

  Lily lowered her gaze to her wineglass and studied the golden hue of the beverage, thinking again of Ethan. “Yes; it was a long day and I decided to stay in.”

  Or rather at the inn, she mused, cringing inwardly at the dreadful pun.

  “I am not surprised. You must be tired.”

  “I am a bit,” Lily admitted.

  Weary and sore, to be honest. In fact, she’d almost canceled this afternoon’s nuncheon with Davina, but had decided to follow through rather than have to make her excuses. Now, she wondered if begging off wouldn’t have been easier, after all.

  Her mind drifted back to this morning with the first rays of sun just breaking in the sky. She’d opened her eyes to find Ethan watching her, his hawkish gaze nearly unreadable except for the desire burning there like a barely banked fire.

  “I suppose you are sore,” he said in a tone that emerged as a growl.

  Tentatively moving her limbs and feeling the twinge deep inside, she nodded, a wash of pink staining her cheeks to remember the cause.

  After that first time, he’d taken her twice more, bringing her powerfully and satisfyingly to peak more times than she’d been able to count. He’d still been inside her that last time when she’d drifted off to sleep.

  Realizing there would be no morning repetition of events, he sat up and tossed back the covers. “Get dressed, then. We will leave wi
thin the hour.”

  And so they had, Ethan driving this time, as he pointed the team toward London. He said barely a word during the return journey, and neither did she. What was there left to say after all that had been spoken of and debated last night?

  When they arrived, there had been no good-bye kiss, not with Hodges and one of her footmen watching them with scarcely concealed interest. Ethan had stepped down long enough to escort her to the door, however, bowing over her hand as though they had done nothing more than return from an ordinary excursion. Then he was gone, flicking the reins so they made an audible snap, Thunder’s and Lightning’s hooves reverberating on the cobbled paving stones.

  The servants, bless them, said little, offering words of pleasure at her return and asking in what way they could serve.

  She’d called first for a bath—a hot soak in a deep copper tub that had done much to restore her, physically at least. Breakfast came next, then a couple of hours’ sleep until noon, when she’d awakened to dress for her two o’clock nuncheon with Davina.

  Has he forgotten me already? she wondered. I gave him his freedom. Is he relieved now that he has escaped?

  Surely he must be.

  Was I a fool to cast him aside?

  She recognized that she’d been protecting herself. Yet were such precautions already too late? And if she could go back in time, would she choose to act differently?

  Not about marriage, she decided; on that point she had not changed her mind. There were too many risks, too much potential for disappointment and heartache, particularly since he had offered marriage only out of guilt and a steadfast sense of honor.

  We would make each other miserable, wouldn’t we?

  Yet she had been far from miserable last night, Ethan bringing her the most extraordinary pleasure she had ever known. She could have continued to know his touch if only she had said yes to his offer to remain his lover.

  But they were better off, she told herself. She didn’t need Ethan Andarton mucking up her carefully laid plans, nor plaguing her with the cravings and desires stirred by the exquisite power of his touch.

  Easier to separate myself from him now than later, right?

  Sighing, she tore the small roll on her bread plate into a trio of pieces, making no effort to eat any of the three.

  “Is something wrong?” Davina asked in a soft voice.

  Lily glanced across at her friend, chagrined to realize she had drifted quite away in her thoughts. She forced down an incriminating blush.

  “No, not at all. Only woolgathering.”

  Davina paused. “He is very handsome, is he not?”

  “Who?”

  “Your marquis.”

  “He is not my marquis. Whatever gave you that notion?” Taking up her fork again, she picked at her salmon. “No, yesterday’s excursion was likely our last together. I rather doubt I will be seeing much of Lord Vessey from now on.”

  Her friend sent her a look, plainly unconvinced. “If you say.”

  “I do. Now, why don’t you get those buttons you wanted to show me.”

  “Will there be anything else, my lord?”

  Ethan glanced up from his book. “No, Welk, thank you. You may retire for the evening.”

  The manservant bowed. “Sleep well, your lordship.”

  “Good night.”

  Once his valet had withdrawn, Ethan returned to his book, but read no more than three lines before he gave up the attempt. A glance at the blue Meissen clock on his bedroom fireplace mantel showed him the hour was well past one o’clock.

  He yawned, his body also reminding him of the late hour and the fact that he’d had little rest the night before, not to mention having been bee-stung and subsequently drugged with laudanum. In a kind of rebellious defiance, however, he’d pushed himself through the day.

  Upon his return home that morning, he’d bathed, changed clothes, and eaten a substantial breakfast. Afterward, he’d ignored his body’s demand for sleep and instead spent a few hours reviewing correspondence and other business matters with his secretary.

  A change into evening attire and he’d been out the door again, arriving at Brooks’s Club for a drink and a few rounds of cards with Tony, Lord Howard, and another couple of his cronies. The group of them had gone to another St. James establishment for a hearty dinner of beefsteak and roast partridge pie. Soon after, Tony had departed for an assignation with his current paramour, while Ethan and the others decided to put in an appearance at a ball known for its wild goings-on and preponderance of demi-reps eager for a dance and a tumble.

  He’d escorted a few of the women to the ballroom floor, their gowns blowsy and low-cut, their skin painted with kohl and rouge, the immoderate scent of their perfume lingering like decaying flowers in his nostrils.

  Memories of fresh, vanilla-scented skin, cleanscrubbed cheeks, and bare pink lips tangled in his mind, his body longing for the untutored embrace of a young woman who knew nothing of sin and degradation, and who had no more in common with the females in this room than their gender.

  Suddenly disgusted with both the demi-reps and himself, he left, driving back to his townhouse long before a gentleman of fashion would retire for the night.

  Once again in his bedchamber, he’d washed himself from head to feet to rid himself of the women’s stink, then slid into a clean dressing gown, tightening the belt at his waist. Selecting an edifying book from the shelf of literary works he kept in his adjoining sitting room, he’d poured a small glass of port and settled onto a chaise near the fireplace to read.

  But he didn’t get far, the letters and words running together in incomprehensible lines, meaningless symbols of black ink that meant nothing.

  Only one word, one name, was clear in his mind.

  Lily.

  Just the thought of her made him stiff with desire, his body abruptly feverish and in need. If he’d thought she would welcome him, he would have dressed and ridden over to her house, then knocked on the door to demand entrance to her bed and her body.

  But she’d made her wishes clear, casting him out, both as a prospective bridegroom and as a lover. Although it might seem a conceit, the truth was there wasn’t a single woman of his acquaintance who would have refused him—only Lily. He couldn’t count the number of women who’d cast out their lures toward him over the years, some wanting his body and his riches, others craving his ring.

  Last night he’d been willing to give them all to Lily, ready to break his unofficial pledge to wed another in a union that would satisfy both his family and his legacy. Amelia was a much better choice for him all around; she was everything a marchioness should be. So why couldn’t he even recall her face? And why, when he thought of her, did he feel as if he were betraying Lily?

  Stupid, since Lily had decided to end their affair before it had truly even begun.

  Even now he wasn’t entirely sure why, since he knew she wanted him. No woman could fake the kind of unbridled passion and fiery response she’d given while in his arms, especially not a girl who had been a virgin until he’d take her innocence. If he’d had any doubt at all on that score—which he had not—seeing the spots of blood on the sheets this morning had proven her truthfulness.

  So why deny him now that her chastity was gone? Had she loved her husband that much? Was her marriage to him so precious that she wanted to preserve the memory, even at the expense of her own happiness and pleasure?

  As for himself, he should have been over her by this afternoon. The one night ought to have been enough, dimming his appetite at least enough for him to move on, to forget her as he searched for someone new.

  Instead, taking her had only increased his longing, his hunger for her keener and more intense than ever. With a near growl, he closed the book and tossed the leather-bound volume aside.

  What I need is sleep.

  Striding toward his bed, he sat down on the sheets that had earlier been turned back in anticipation of his use. He was bending forward to blow out the candle w
hen he noticed a single stalk of hay lying on the night table—the same windblown piece he’d plucked from Lily’s breasts during their ride to Richmond. When he’d found it still inside his pocket this morning, he’d placed the stalk here beside his bed.

  Pausing, he picked it up, twirling the slender reed between his fingers for a long moment. Lifting it to his nose, he inhaled the earthy scent, thinking of her and their time together.

  Calling himself twice a fool, he nearly tossed the stalk away. Instead, he placed it inside the night-table drawer, then snuffed out the light.

  When he stretched out under the covers, he was certain he would be asleep instantly. In spite of his exhaustion, though, nearly an hour passed before slumber finally claimed him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THREE DAYS LATER, Lily left the house at nine o’clock in the morning to take a stroll around the square and through the nearby neighborhood streets, her maid trailing a few steps behind her for propriety and safety’s sake.

  Although the pastime might not be strictly fashionable, Lily still enjoyed taking a walk, and did so as her schedule allowed. After all, she had walked on a regular basis for nearly the whole of her life and saw no reason to stop simply because she now lived in the city.

  True, there were no rugged, windblown cliffs, no rolling grassy fields or patchy, rock-strewn moors, but London provided a host of interesting sights nonetheless. In the mornings, milkmaids and orange girls called out their wares, while later in the day a variety of vendors would make their rounds, offering everything from fine inks and tea to fresh flowers and songbirds.

  Lily would sometimes buy a few pence worth of flowers and had once been tempted to purchase a pair of beautiful yellow canaries. Ultimately she had decided against bringing the little birds into her home, though, for fear Mouser would take it in his head to stalk and eat them.

  She could have gone to one of the parks, she supposed, and promenaded in fine style with the rest of the ladies and gentlemen. But she rather preferred being left to her own devises and musings without the need to pause every couple of minutes to engage in ten additional minutes of meaningless small talk.