The Secret Mistress

by Mary Balogh

  It was absolutely none of his business what Windrow might do, Edward told himself. And the pink lady was certainly none of his concern. Let her look to the consequences of her own indiscretions. Let her family look to them. Besides, this was the public taproom of a respectable inn. No real harm would come to her.

  He urged himself to be on his way.

  But he found himself instead resting his elbow on the counter and picking up his glass again.

  Confound his misplaced sense of social responsibility. The fact that Eunice might applaud him for staying was no consolation.

  The landlord appeared behind the counter and served Windrow with a tankard of ale before disappearing again.

  Windrow turned to survey the room, and his eyes alit almost immediately upon the pink lady. But how could they not unless he was totally blind? He leaned back against the counter, resting his forearms back along it while clutching his tankard in one hand. His lips pursed in a silent whistle.

  Edward was all the more annoyed at the blatantly sensual look on the man’s face because his own must have looked very much like it just a few minutes ago.

  “Sweetheart,” Windrow said softly, obviously having dismissed Edward as a man of no account whatsoever—or perhaps he had not even noticed him, “may I persuade you to share my ale? Better yet, may I persuade you to share it and a meat pasty? There is only one comfortable-looking chair over by the fireplace, I see, but you may sit on my lap and share that too.”

  Edward frowned at him. Could he not see that the woman was a lady? The evidence was glaring enough in the fine muslin of her dress, despite the bright shade, and in the intricacy of her coiffure of dark hair. He glanced at her, expecting to see her stiffen with horror and fright. She continued to stare out the window. She either assumed that the invitation was directed at someone else, or—was it possible?—she simply did not hear the words at all.

  He should leave, Edward decided. Right now.

  He spoke instead.

  “I doubt you know the lady,” he said. “Calling her sweetheart, then, would be inappropriately impertinent.”

  Maurice had often called him, affectionately enough most of the time, a staid old sobersides. Edward half expected to see dust emerge from his mouth along with the words. But they were spoken now, and he would not recall them if he could. Someone had to speak up for defenseless female innocence. If she was innocent, that was.

  Windrow’s head swiveled slowly, and just as slowly his lazy eyes swept Edward from head to toe. His perusal aroused no discernible alarm in him.

  “You were speaking to me, fellow?” he asked.

  Edward in his turn looked slowly about the room.

  “I must have been,” he said. “I see no one else present except the two of us and the lady, and I am not in the habit of speaking to myself.”

  Slight amusement showed in the other man’s face.

  “Lady,” he said. “I take it she is not with you. She is alone, then. I wish she were a lady. It might be mildly less of a yawn to frequent London ballrooms and drawing rooms. You would be wise, fellow, to address yourself to what remains of your ale and mind your own business.”

  And he turned back to regard the woman’s derriere again. She had changed position. Her elbows were now on the sill, and her face was cupped in her hands. The effect of the change was to thrust her bosom into more prominence in one direction and her derriere in the other.

  If she could only step back and see herself from this position, Edward thought, she would run screaming from the room and never return, even with a dozen chaperons.

  “Perhaps this lady would care to sit in my lap while I call to the landlord to bring her a pasty and ale so that she may share with me,” Windrow said with insolent emphasis. “Would you, sweetheart?”

  Edward sighed inwardly and moved one degree closer to an unwilling confrontation. It was too late to back off now.

  “I really must insist,” he said, “that the lady be treated with the respect that any female ought to be accorded as a matter of right by anyone claiming the name of gentleman.”

  He sounded pompous. Of course he sounded pompous. He always did, did he not?

  Windrow’s head turned, and his amusement was quite unmistakable now.

  “Are you looking for a fight, fellow?” he asked.

  The lady seemed finally to have realized that she was the subject of the conversation behind her. She straightened up and turned, all wide, dark eyes in a narrow, handsome face, and all tall, shapely height.

  Good God, Edward thought, the rest of her person more than lived up to the promise of her derriere. She was a rare beauty. But this was no time to allow himself to be distracted. He had been asked a question.

  “I have never felt any burning desire to enforce gentility or simple civility with my fists,” he said, his tone mild and amiable. “It seems something of a contradiction in terms.”

  “I believe,” Windrow said, “I have the pleasure of addressing a sniveling coward. And a stuffy windbag. All wrapped in one neat package.”

  Each charge, even the last, was an insult. But Edward would be damned before he would allow himself to be goaded into adopting swashbuckling tactics just to prove to someone he despised that he was a man.

  “A man who defends the honor of a lady, and who expects a gentleman to behave like one and confronts him when he does not, is a coward, then?” he asked mildly.

  The woman’s eyes, he was aware, had moved from one to the other of them but were now riveted upon his face. Her hands were clasped to her bosom as though she had been struck by some tender passion. She looked remarkably unalarmed.

  “I believe,” Windrow said, “the suggestion has been made that I am not a gentleman. If I had a glove about my person, I would slap it across your insolent face, fellow, and invite you to follow me out to the inn yard. But a man ought not to be allowed to get away with being a coward and a stuffy windbag, gloves or no gloves, ought he? Fellow, you are hereby challenged to fisticuffs outside.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the inn yard and smiled—very unpleasantly indeed.

  Once more Edward sighed inwardly.

  “And the winner proves himself a gentleman worthy of the name, does he?” he said. “Pardon me if I disagree and decline your generous offer. I will settle for an apology to the lady instead, before you take yourself off.”

  He glanced at her again. She was still gazing fixedly at him.

  He had, as he was fully aware, backed himself into a tight corner from which there was no way out that was not going to prove painful. He was going to end up having to fight Windrow and either give him a bloody nose and two black eyes to take to London with him, or suffer his opponent to dish out the like to himself. Or both.

  It was all very tedious. Nothing but flash and fists. That was what being a gentleman was, to many of the men who claimed the name. Maurice, unfortunately, had been one of them.

  “Apologize to the lady?” Windrow laughed softly and with undisguised menace.

  That was when the lady decided to enter the fray—without uttering a word.

  She seemed to grow three inches. She looked suddenly regal and haughty—and she shifted her gaze to Windrow. She looked him up and down unhurriedly and appeared to find what she saw utterly contemptible.

  It was a masterly performance—or perhaps a mistressly one.

  Her wordless comment was not without its effect, even though Windrow was half grinning at her. Perhaps it was a rueful grin?

  “I misjudged you, alas, did I?” he asked her. “Because you were alone in here and leaning nonchalantly on the windowsill and dressed like a bird of paradise, I suppose. I cannot persuade you to share a pasty and a glass of ale with me? Or to sit on my lap? A pity. And it would seem I cannot persuade this sniveling coward to defend your honor or his own with his fists. What a sad day to have encountered when I had such high hopes of it when I awoke this morning. There is nothing for it, I see, but to resume my tedious journey and hope for a brigh
ter tomorrow.”

  And he pushed himself away from the counter, setting down his empty tankard as he did so, and would have sauntered out of the inn without a word more or a backward glance. He found an obstacle in his path, however. Before he could reach the door, Edward was there ahead of him and standing in front of it, blocking the way.

  “You have forgotten something,” he said. “You owe the lady an apology.”

  Windrow’s eyebrows rose and amusement suffused his face again. He turned back to the room and made the lady a deep and mocking bow.

  “Oh, fair one,” he said, “it pains me that I may have distressed you with my admiration. Accept my humble apologies, I beg you.”

  She neither accepted nor rejected them. She gazed coldly at him without relaxing her regal demeanor.

  Windrow winked at her.

  “I shall look forward to making your official acquaintance at some future date,” he said. “It is my fervent hope that that will not be far in the future.”

  He turned to Edward, who stood out of the way of the door.

  “And likewise for you, fellow,” he said. “It will be a distinct pleasure.”

  Edward inclined his head curtly to him, and Windrow left the inn and closed the door behind him.

  That left Edward and the lady in the taproom together again. But this time she knew he was there and so the impropriety could not be ignored or even silently fumed over. He was freshly annoyed with her—and with himself for having become embroiled in such an undignified episode.

  She was gazing at him, the regal demeanor vanished, her hands clasped at her bosom again.

  Edward inclined his head curtly to her and made his way outside. He half expected to find Windrow lying in wait for him in the yard and was almost disappointed to see no sign of the man.

  Less than five minutes later he was inside his carriage again and on his way toward London. Ten minutes after that, the carriage passed a far smarter one—of course, it would have been difficult to find one shabbier—traveling with reckless speed in the opposite direction. He caught a glimpse of the coat of arms emblazoned on the door: the Duke of Tresham’s. He breathed a sigh of relief that at least he had been spared having to encounter that particular gentleman at the Rose and Crown in addition to Windrow. It would have been the final straw.

  Tresham was not his favorite person in the world. And, to be fair, he did not doubt that he was not Tresham’s either. The duke had been another of Maurice’s friends. It was in a curricle race against him that Maurice had overturned his own and killed himself. And then Tresham had had the effrontery to turn up at Maurice’s funeral. Edward had made his opinion known to him there.

  He wished anew that he could have stayed at Wimsbury Abbey. But duty called in London. And there was consolation, for Eunice was there too. She was staying with Lady Sanford, her aunt, and he would see her again.

  It struck him suddenly that Tresham was driving in the opposite direction from London. Perhaps he was on his way to Acton Park. Perhaps he was going to remain there throughout the spring. It was something to be hoped for.

  Who the devil was that lady back at the inn? Someone needed to take her in hand and teach her a thing or two about what was what.

  But devil take it, she was a rare beauty.

  He frowned as he shifted position in a vain attempt to get comfortable.

  Beauty was no excuse for impropriety. Indeed, beauty called for more than usual discretion.

  He still felt entirely out of charity with her, whoever she was. Unlike Windrow, he did not look forward to making her official acquaintance. He hoped rather that he would never see her again. He hoped she was traveling away from London rather than toward it.

  Preferably to the highlands of Scotland.

  Chapter 2

  ANGELINE STOOD STARING at the inside of the taproom door, her hands clasped to her bosom.

  She did not even know his name. He had gone away before she had a chance to say anything, and he had not spoken to her either. But of course, he was a perfect gentleman. His words and actions had proved that. It would have been improper for him to speak, for they had not been formally introduced and ought not even to have been in a room alone together. She ought not to be here at all.

  She did not know who he was. She did not even know whether he was traveling toward London or away from it. It was altogether possible that she would never see him again.

  By the time she had noticed the other man striding toward the taproom door earlier, it had been too late to withdraw to her room. So she had stayed where she was, hoping not to be noticed. There was no reason why she should be. None of the stagecoach passengers had noticed her, after all, and she was standing with her back to the room, minding her own business.

  When he had spoken—oh, how her heart had leapt with alarm and indignation!—she had pretended not to hear and hoped he would go away. And then another voice had spoken up, and she had realized that there was more than one man in the taproom, that the other man must have been there even before the new arrival.

  How dreadfully mortifying!

  But his words …

  I doubt you know the lady. Calling her sweetheart, then, would be inappropriately impertinent.

  So pleasantly, courteously spoken in low, cultured accents.

  He had been championing her cause.

  Angeline had changed position, cupping her face in her hands in an attempt to keep it hidden from the two gentlemen—she sincerely hoped there were only two. And she had gazed intently at the gateway arch leading out to the street, for the first time willing Tresham not to come just yet. He would probably punch the teeth of both gentlemen straight down their throats, which would be a simple overreaction in the one case and a gross miscarriage of justice in the other. He would then blister her all over, without using anything more lethal than his tongue. His tongue, when he waxed eloquent, could be very lethal.

  And then the newcomer had become even more impertinent, and the other one had defended her again. And the newcomer—so typically male—had wanted to make a fight of it.

  Angeline had been unable either to disappear or to make herself invisible. Nor could she pretend any longer that what was happening in the room behind her had nothing to do with her. Besides, she had not wanted to ignore the contretemps. Indignation had long ago replaced fright—she did not frighten easily or for long. And besides again, she had wanted to see these two men.

  And so she had turned. There were only two, one at each end of the counter, like bookends. Not identical bookends, though. And before either had spoken a word more, she had identified which was which. It was really quite easy.

  The one slouched back with casual elegance against the counter, supported on his forearms, his riding boots crossed nonchalantly at the ankles, was the impertinent one. Every line of his tall, athletic body, every garment he wore, spoke of a man who was confident and arrogant and fearless and contemptuous of all who were beneath him in consequence—a number that would of course include all women. His face, beneath a shock of dark red hair, was handsome enough if one discounted the fact that he affected world-weariness by keeping his eyelids half drooped over his eyes.

  He was a type she recognized instantly. Her father had been such a man. Tresham was such a man. So was Ferdinand, her other brother. So were all their friends whom she had met. They were often lovable and essentially harmless despite all the silliness. Angeline could never take such men too seriously. She was quite impervious to their charms. She would never even dream of marrying one of them.

  The second man was entirely different, even though he was almost as tall as the other and was well and solidly built. He was dressed neatly and fashionably but without any flair or ostentation or any suggestion of dandyism. His brown hair was cut short and neatly styled. His face was neither handsome nor plain. Although he had an elbow on the counter, he was not leaning on it.

  He was … an ordinary man. Which was by no means an insult or even a dismissal of his claim
to be noticed. Angeline had noticed him. And she was as sure as she could be that he was her defender, while the other was her tormentor.

  Her guess was soon proved correct.

  I have never felt any burning desire to enforce gentility or simple civility with my fists, he had said. It seems something of a contradiction in terms.

  And yet he was not a coward, though that was what the other man accused him of. He would have fought if he had had to. His actions at the end had proved that. Instead of accepting partial victory when the almost-handsome redhead was leaving, he had stepped over to the door to block the man’s exit and insisted quietly and courteously that he apologize.

  He would have fought. And though common sense told Angeline that he would very soon have been outsized, outclassed, and out cold if the other man had forced him into it, she would not have wagered against him. Quite the contrary.

  How could one not fall instantly in love with such a man, Angeline asked herself as she stared at the door after they had both left. In a few short minutes he had shown himself to be her ideal of manhood. Of gentlemanhood. He seemed perfectly content and comfortable with his ordinariness. He seemed not to feel the need to posture and prove his masculinity at every turn, preferably with his fists, as most men did in Angeline’s admittedly rather limited experience.

  He was, in fact, more than ordinary. He was an extraordinary man.

  And she had fallen head over ears in love with him.

  Indeed, she was going to marry him—despite the fact that she would probably never see him again.

  Love would find a way.

  With which decidedly muddled form of logic she returned to reality and the distinct possibility that if she remained in the taproom any longer she might well be assailed by the comings and goings of yet more travelers—all undoubtedly male. The room was not, alas, nearly as deserted and private as it had appeared when she came down here. And if Tresham caught her here …