“I suppose,” she said, “you’ve come to collect your things. They’re in the kitchen where you left them. I’ll fetch them for you.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I was just going to pay my respects to Lady Agatha.”
She frowned. She didn’t want him anywhere near her mother and sister, but Lady Agatha knew he was here, and she was beside herself with joy at the thought of having a visitor. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “But be quick about it. She’s a delicacy, so don’t say anything stupid to upset her.”
Benedict started up the steps to her. She waited on the landing, her hand on the railing.
“You haven’t told her anything, have you?” he asked anxiously.
“Of course not,” she said scornfully.
“There’s no reason, after all,” he said, looking into her green eyes, “for Lady Agatha to know. She would be very angry with you, I’m sure.”
“With me!” she said. He moved closer to her, but she did not move away.
“Yes, with you,” he said softly. “It is most unfair, I know, but, in such cases as these, the woman is always blamed. She might even turn you out of the house. Have you thought of that? A beautiful girl like you? On your own in this cold, cruel world?”
He traced his finger along her jaw. Her eyes widened but she did not flinch.
“Of course, I am to blame,” he said. “My behavior was atrocious. I was not a gentleman. Forgive me?” He moved his lips to hers, and, when she still not flinch, he kissed her. It was a chaste, quiet kiss. “Am I forgiven, Miss Cosy?”
He kissed her again. Her mouth tasted clean and tart, like a green apple. He wanted more of it. He wished she might kiss him back, but he supposed that was out of the question. A housekeeper could lose her place if she was caught in such a compromising position.
“Come away with me,” he whispered. “Let me be your protector. Let me take you away from a life of drudgery and care. You’ll never have to work again in your life. You’ve no idea how boring my life was before I met you. Say something, my angel.”
She stepped back from him and touched her mouth. She looked quite surprised.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” she demanded.
“Oh, yes.”
“You devil! Meet me in the kitchen in five minutes,” she said. “You can shag the fanny off me then, if you like.”
He smiled. He was a young man when he smiled. “Make it twenty, you little beauty. I have to go up to the drawing-room now and make nice with bloody Lady Agatha. But then…” His eyes glowed. “Oh, then, my angel, my dove, my sweet, sweet honey, I shall ravish you to your heart’s content.”
She pushed him away and smoothed down her dress. “Keep your breeches on, lover,” she said. “You still have to make nice with Lady Agatha. I’ll take you up now.”
“A pox,” he said, “on Lady Agatha. Lead on, bright star. Take me anywhere you like.”
She turned smartly and started up the next flight of stairs. It was all he could do not to run a hand over those slim, young haunches. She looked back over her shoulder at him and plucked his heart out with a smile.
“After you,” she said softly at the drawing-room door, and, very deliberately, he brushed the front of his body against hers as he went in. He was looking forward to the next twenty minutes of pleasurable agony, to be followed by twenty minutes of agonizing pleasure in the kitchen.
But first…the social niceties must be observed with the mistress of the house. In the drawing-room, a frail woman of uncertain age and a robust child were sitting in front of a small fire. The older woman, presumably Lady Agatha, was disposed on the sofa, bundled in a shawl, with a rug over her knees and a cap over her frizzy red hair, while the child, a girl of perhaps nine years of age, was draped across a chair, rapidly and noisily shifting the tiles of a fifteen puzzle. She was wearing an ugly pinafore dress of brown bombazine. She had flaxen hair and green eyes, just like the delectable Miss Cosy.
That struck Benedict as rather odd. After all, green eyes and flaxen hair were not all that common outside of the Scandinavian countries.
The room was cold.
“Mother?” Cosy said softly.
The lady on the sofa gave a start and looked around, confused.
Benedict knew just how the poor woman felt.
“Mother, this is Sir Benedict. Sir Benedict, this is my mother, Lady Agatha Vaughn.”
“Ah,” said Benedict.
“Sir Benedict has come for a nice long visit. Isn’t that nice of him?”
She sat down on the sofa and arranged her striped skirts. Benedict looked at her without expression for a moment, then turned to her mother.
Lady Agatha was not, Benedict realized instantly, a fashionable hypochondriac like Lady Matlock. Cosmetics could not hide her ravaged complexion. She was tiny and frail. She breathed wheezily. Benedict seized on the excuse to beat a hasty retreat. “Perhaps I should call when her ladyship is feeling better,” he offered.
To his horror, Lady Agatha burst into tears. “It’s the light,” she sobbed. “The morning sun is not kind to a woman of my years.”
Cosy looked daggers at Benedict. “Nice!” she snarled at him before turning to her mother. “You look beautiful, Mother,” she said soothingly. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that!” She took out her handkerchief and carefully dried her mother’s face. “Allie, go and draw the curtains!” she snapped.
“I’m working my puzzle,” the younger girl snarled.
Muttering unladylike imprecations under her breath, the elder girl went to the windows and closed the curtains herself.
“Of course,” said Benedict, “I did not mean to insult your ladyship. I was told that you were very ill, Lady Agatha. I simply do not wish to intrude if you would rather be resting. That is all.”
“Mother’s having one of her good days,” Cosy said as Benedict’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. “Aren’t you, Mother?”
“I feel quite like my old self,” wheezed Lady Agatha.
Good God, Benedict thought.
Cosy lit a branch of tallow candles standing on a pedestal in one corner of the room. The candlelight cast an orange stain over parts of the room, casting black and umber shadows over the rest of it. “We’re glad of the company,” Cosy said. “We don’t know very many people here.” She looked at him angrily. “Well? Aren’t you going to sit down and make nice?”
“I wasn’t asked to sit down,” he retorted. “Miss Cosy,” he added irritably. “Or should I say Miss Vaughn?”
“Will you sit down,” she said. It was not a request. Almost in the same breath she barked, “Allie! Take that clackering over to the window; you’ll ruin your eyes.”
Benedict sat down and the child took her fifteen puzzle to the window seat.
Cosy sat down next to her mother again. Lady Agatha had withdrawn as far as she could into the shadows. The gentleman had made her feel self-conscious about her looks.
Benedict said, “Please forgive me for presenting myself to you unannounced, Lady Agatha, but I understand that your ladyship rarely ventures out into society. I am a little acquainted with your brother, Lord Wayborn,” he added.
“That’s society for you,” Cosy murmured. “Everybody knows everybody.”
Lady Agatha’s voice quivered. “Did my brother send you, Sir Benjamin?”
“It’s Benedict, Mother. Like the saint,” Cosy said maliciously.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Lady Agatha. “Did my brother send you, Sir Benedict?”
“No, my lady. But I felt it was only right that I pay my respects when I discovered that his sister was in Bath. In point of fact, I am a distant relation. Mine is the Surrey branch of the Wayborn family. My sister, Juliet, married a duke last summer. You may have read about it in the papers. The wedding party lasted a month. I had many conversations with your brother.”
“We were still in Ireland last summer,” said Lady Agatha. “It’s so difficult to get proper news in Ireland,” she compl
ained. “We are much better off here. Cosima, ring the bell for tea.”
“Sir Benedict doesn’t like tea,” said Cosy. “And besides, Nora’s gone to the market. There’s no one in the kitchen at all, at all.”
Benedict glared at her.
“I do wish you wouldn’t speak in that dreadful brogue,” said Lady Agatha, wincing. “What will the gentleman think?”
“The gentleman,” said Miss Vaughn, “can think whatever he likes.”
“It is so nice to have a visitor,” said Lady Agatha hastily. “Lady Dalrymple used to visit us when we first came to Bath. And her son, Mr. Carteret, was very much in love with my daughter, but then we got that awful letter from the bank—”
“And so the love dried up,” Cosy said with a short laugh.
“Cosima,” Benedict said, looking at her.
She looked at him, startled.
“You have an unusual and lovely name, Miss Vaughn. It is Italian, I believe?”
“All my children have Italian names,” Lady Agatha said. “Colonel Vaughn and I honeymooned in Italy, you know. Of course, he was only a captain then. All the children are like him, as tall and blond as Vikings. No one would ever guess they were half-Irish.”
Benedict looked at Cosima. “Larry? Sandy? And Dan, I think it was?”
“Lorenzo, Alessandro, and Dante,” she replied.
“Of course. And your father is the colonel of the regiment?”
“Aye. And that changeling in the window is my sister, Allegra.”
“My Italian is not very good,” said Benedict. “But I think that means ‘lively’?”
“And doesn’t she look lively too!” Cosima snorted. “Have you even looked at your lessons today, Allie?”
Miss Allegra Vaughn was outraged. “I’m doing my fifteen puzzle!”
“You’re going to be the most ignorant girl in that school,” Cosy warned. “Sure, the English girls will all be laughing at you and your fifteen puzzle.”
Allie scowled. “I don’t care what you say! I’m not going back to there.”
Cosima laughed mirthlessly. “My sister was enrolled at Miss Bulstrode’s Seminary for Young Ladies, Sir Benedict, but we had a tiny little problem with the fee.”
“We couldn’t pay it,” Allie explained. “And so Miss Bulstrode turfed me out. We still can’t afford it,” she said happily.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” said Cosima. “We’ve come into some money. Sir Benedict has agreed to pay all your school fees. Now, isn’t that nice of him?”
“I beg your pardon!” said Benedict in a cold and withdrawn voice.
“I know you wanted to keep it a secret,” she said. “But I don’t keep secrets from my family. Besides, my mother would worry if I suddenly turned up with, say, a thousand pounds?”
Benedict glared at her. He understood that he was receiving a veiled threat. If he didn’t pay Miss Vaughn what she wanted, there was going to be a scandal the likes of which Bath had not seen since Miss Linley ran off with Mr. Sheridan. He would have to pay, too; she was so lovely anything she said would be instantly believed. It was blackmail, pure and simple.
“Of course,” he said coldly. “We would not want your mother to worry.”
Snakes and bastards, she thought. I should have asked for more money.
“I am sure, Sir Benedict,” said Lady Agatha, “that you could not ask for a better wife than Cosima. Not only is she the prettiest girl you will ever see, but she is the dearest, kindest girl, with the sweetest disposition I ever met with.”
“Indeed!” said the gentleman, indulging himself in a short laugh.
Miss Allegra looked up from her puzzle game. “You’re getting married?”
Cosy felt her cheeks go hot. “Of course not! Mother, you misunderstand. Sir Benedict doesn’t want anything in return for his benevolence. Besides, he’s too old for me,” she said brutally. “What on earth would we have to talk about in the evenings?”
“I was on the ark with Noah,” Benedict said grimly. “I could tell you all about it.”
“But, dearest, we can’t accept money from a stranger,” Lady Agatha protested weakly. “Not unless he marries you, Cosima. It wouldn’t be proper.”
“If you were her husband, you could beat her,” Allegra offered enticingly.
“I could indeed, Miss Allegra.”
“And he could beat you, too, miss,” Cosy snapped. “Or send you to the North Pole. And he could put Mother in the hospital or God knows where. So be careful what you wish for.”
“Oh, no!” wheezed Lady Agatha.
“He wouldn’t do that to us,” said Allegra. “He likes us.”
“Nobody’s getting married,” said Cosy.
“Then we really shouldn’t take the money, my dear,” said Lady Agatha. “I may be poor, Sir Benedict, but I don’t like charity.”
“He’s a relative, Mother,” Cosy said patiently. “There’s no harm in taking assistance from a relative, is there? Besides, he’s stinking rich. He’ll never miss it.”
Lady Agatha giggled suddenly like a schoolgirl. Her scruples vanished without a trace. “A thousand pounds,” she cried. “Sir! How can we ever thank you? That would just about set us up for life! You can get your pianoforte back now, Cosima! I was so sorry for her, Sir Benedict, when we had to sell it. If only you’d come last week.”
Cosy frowned. She did not want the odious Sir Benedict to know that she had been obliged to sell her precious piano. Somehow, his knowing just how miserable poor they were spoiled the triumph of having lifted a thousand pounds from him.
“That old thing,” she sneered. “Sure it was so old and cranky and slow there was no playing it anyway. My father won it at cards. I’ve my eye on a sweet new Clementi with eight octaves.”
“I want a French lady’s maid and a pony,” said Allegra. “And all new clothes.”
“You do, do you?” her sister retorted.
“You must let us do something to show our appreciation. Could we not invite Sir Benedict to dine, Cosima?” Lady Agatha pleaded. “Cosima is an excellent cook, Sir Benedict.”
“Miss Vaughn does the cooking?” he said, startled.
“Why?” Cosy said angrily. “Don’t your English girls cook?”
“My sister, the duchess, used to make a sort of salmon mayonnaise,” he said. “Her adventures in the kitchen were never due to necessity, however. We always had more servants than we knew what to do with at Wayborn Hall.”
“Good for you.”
“We were obliged to dismiss all the servants here except for Nora and Jackson when the letter came from the bank,” Lady Agatha said.
“You were?” he said frowning. “Usually these houses come with servants in place. The landlord pays their wages.”
“You mean we might have kept our servants?” Allie said furiously. “You had me in the kitchen scrubbing pots like a slavey!” she accused her sister.
“Well,” said Benedict. “It would hardly be gallant of me to accept an invitation to dine. That would only make more work for Miss Vaughn and Miss Allegra.”
“How very thoughtful of you,” Cosy said, gritting her teeth.
“They are ruining their hands in the kitchen, I know it,” cried Lady Agatha. “How are they going to find husbands with burned and calloused hands?”
“It’s a kitchen, Mother. Not a smithy.”
“I wish with all my heart that Cosima could go out and enjoy herself, Sir Benedict. It’s no life for a young girl to be trapped indoors all day looking after a stupid old woman.”
“It wasn’t so bad when Lady Dalrymple finally left us,” Cosy said, trying to laugh.
“I meant myself, dearest,” Lady Agatha said earnestly. “Our subscription to the Upper Rooms is paid, Sir Benedict, but Mr. King told Cosima she could not go to any of the balls without a chaperone. And I am simply too ill to accompany her. No sooner do I go out, but my knees shake, and the world swims before my eyes. Do you think it would be all right if I used some of the money to hire
a chaperone?”
“That won’t be necessary, ma’am. As a relative, it would be my honor to escort Miss Vaughn to the various entertainments.”
Cosima glared at him suspiciously.
“Yes, my dear, you must go!” cried Lady Agatha with growing excitement. “You must have all new gowns. You must go to all the balls, and dance with all the young men. Who knows but that one of them will marry you, and then you will be settled and secure. I worry about my girls so, Sir Benedict.”
“Why does she get new gowns?” cried Allie. “What about me?”
“I couldn’t leave you here on your own, Mother,” Cosy objected.
“Nonsense,” said Lady Agatha. “Nora will be here, and I can send Jackson to fetch you home at once should anything serious take place. Do it for me, Cosima. I hate to see you wasting the best years of your life in the sickroom. The subscription is paid. It’s only going to waste. Mr. King won’t give us our money back. Please, dearest. For me?”
Cosy chewed her bottom lip for a moment. True, he was an untrustworthy bastard but, after all, there was no such thing as a perfect man. If she sat around waiting for Mr. Perfect to come along and escort her to the Upper Rooms, she’d never go anywhere. It would be a waste of money hiring a chaperone, when she could get one for free.
“No balls,” she said firmly.
“Excuse me?” said Benedict.
“I’d like to go to the concert on Tuesday, but I’ve no interest in balls,” she explained.
“But you love to dance,” said Lady Agatha.
“Irish balls are an entirely different matter. English balls are all about pomp and circumstance, but Irish balls are fun.”
“Tuesday?” said Benedict. “Some songs in Italian, I believe.”
“You are always saying that you are Italian in your heart, my dear,” said Lady Agatha.
Rules for Being a Mistress Page 9
