By the time he knew how to read, he couldn’t bear to be reminded of what they had shared. Poor Luce must have given up hope on him, or counted on the Corsican monster to win.
But England had prevailed five years ago, in no small part due to Simon. And Simon would prevail too—buy Ferguson’s house, acquire a mistress to put in it, find a wife. Have a few little Keiths—for that was his name now—although with his imposing height, they wouldn’t stay little for long.
Lord Percival Ferguson looked ill at ease, and well he should. It was not just because he was wearing a fine suit of gentleman’s evening clothes, either, although he had chosen a blindingly puce vest to add a bit of color. “All I’m asking you to do, my dear, is give the man a chance.”
“How could you, Percy? You cannot sell me along with the house!” Lucy paced her sweet little sitting room, her long legs making short work of the distance. Pale copper braids flew behind her, striking her cheek when she turned.
“Lucy, darling, I’m not selling you. I thought to give you some security, chatting you up with Sir Simon. You and I have been good friends—the best of friends—for six years. I don’t want to imagine you out in the cold.”
And it was cold. October chill had set in. Winter would be upon them soon, and where would she go? “I suppose you’ll want to keep my fur cloak, too! Damn it, Percy, you can’t pass me off like a basket of dinner rolls.”
“Just one meeting, love. If you don’t like him, you don’t need to stay. We can make some other arrangements. I can’t give you very much in the way of any congé, though, you know. I’m beyond broke. But I sang your praises—”
“Lied, you mean!”
“Nonsense. I’m sure you’ll be very skilled in the bedroom if you put your mind to it. There are books to help you, you know. That neighbor of yours writes them.”
Lucy shot daggers at him at the idea of reading dirty books, even if she already had a time or two, so he changed his tack. “Sir Simon is handsome. Rich. If I didn’t have a tendre for my Yates I’d be quite taken with him myself. And he’s much taller than you, no easy feat. The man is an Atlas. I got a crick in my neck looking up at him, and we were sitting in chairs at my club.”
Simon. The name alone was an ill omen. Just what she needed as a reminder of her past. Why couldn’t the bluidy man be called Harold or Henry or George? “And he’s a complete, utter stranger! Percy, you have gone too far.”
He shrugged in apology. “That’s what I do, my dear. I’ve never known my limits. Bane of my existence. Mama’s, too.”
Lucy did not wish to think of Percy’s dragon of a mother. She held a hand against her flat chest, as if to keep her crumbling heart from bouncing out and shattering on the carpet. “This is intolerable. I’ll have to go back to Edinburgh.”
“You know your ghastly old aunt won’t have you. She’s told everybody you’re dead. You’ll scare the life out of the old neighborhood if you turn up. You’re pale as a ghost as it is.”
Lucy stopped her march to the wall. “To her I am dead. She thinks I’m a Fallen Woman.”
Percy cleared his throat. “You are a Fallen Woman,” he reminded her gently.
“I should never have told you about that boy! And anyway, I was practically a child. I didn’t know any better.”
“I know. You placed your fate in the hands of a handsome thief.” Percy sighed and looked rather like a sympathetic basset hound, all mournful eyes and wobbly jowls.
Lucy and Percy really were friends, really almost like sisters, so to speak. They had confided nearly everything to each other over the years. He knew all about that bastard Simon Grant, or as much as she was willing to tell him, and she knew—well, she knew enough to blackmail Percy for the rest of his life if only he had any money. She flung herself down on the sofa, allowing her misery to swallow her up.
“Och! I’ll nae be able to do it!” she said, sobbing into the sleeve of her sensible white night rail.
It was unusual for her to lapse into her Scots accent. Percy had drummed every conceivable ladylike lesson into her, and that included erasing the nature of her humble origins. She spoke English far better than Queen Caroline, and dressed more elegantly too.
“Oh, you’re breaking my heart,” said Percy, tearing a lace-edged handkerchief out of his pocket and sobbing next to her. “I wish I’d never listened to that dastardly scheme to import those mulberry trees and silkworms from China. But I could have cornered the silk market! Just think of the dresses we could have had.”
Lucy hiccupped. “You couldn’t have known the trees were diseased and the silkworms would become poisoned and die.” That had just been one catastrophic business failure. She was too kind to bring up the others, but Percy did himself after he blew his nose.
“And that Nigerian prince took me in as well. All that money transferred to him, and he was nothing but the son of a goatherd. There isn’t even a king in his country! Well,” Percy said, flourishing his rather damp handkerchief, “I expect my luck is about to change. Steam engines, Lucy. That’s the future. Sir Simon has assured me that to invest with him will bring me untold fortune.”
“Percy! Don’t tell me you’ve traded this house for shares in some fly-by-night enterprise! Again!” She smacked Percy on his hollow chest.
“No, no. Nothing like that. Sir Simon says—”
“I don’t give a fig what the bluidy man says! It’s cash you need, Percy, and a lot of it! How will you be able to pay our dressmaker?”
“We’ll come to terms, never you fear. In six months I’ll be rich as Croesus. But not,” he said, wiping a tear from his watery brown eye, “in time to save you. It’s all I can do to find Yates a job at Mama’s.”
Percy’s mother lived at Ferguson House in Portman Square, which was of course Percy’s and not his mama’s at all. If it were up to Lucy, she’d send the witchy old countess back to Scotland and hope she got lost in a Highland snowdrift.
Percy brushed her tear-stained cheeks with a dry corner of his handkerchief. “Just try to like him, Lucy. That’s all I ask. He’s a wee bit rough around the edges—his knighthood’s a recent thing—but he seems a gentleman. And he is very good-looking. He wants a place to entertain his investors, and Jane Street has cachet. Think of the dinner parties you can preside at as hostess.”
“You sold the damned dining table, Percy,” Lucy reminded him. Now she ate down in the kitchen or on a tray in her sitting room if she ate at all.
“It was a signed Sheraton—of course I did. You should wear the fern-green-striped gown with the cream Brussels lace when he comes to call. The emerald parure, even if they’re paste. And you might want to pad your bosom until you sign your contract. After that, it’s every man for himself. Caveat emptor, don’t you know.”
Lucy smacked him again, but her heart wasn’t in it. What choice did she have? This Sir Simon might not even like her anyway, unless he wanted to borrow her clothes. She was not the usual run of mistress, especially since she hadn’t bedded a man in thirteen years. She would always be too tall, too pale, too opinionated. Percy had done her no favors dragging her down here into this hotbed of sin. She could have happily gone blind stitching rosettes and ribbons to hats for the rest of her life, waiting to inherit her aunt’s millinery shop.
All possibility of that was gone now.
Lucy wiped her nose on her sleeve, eschewing Percy’s offer of the snot-ridden handkerchief. “When is he coming?” It had better not be tonight—Percy had found her with her hair in braids in bed with a good book—well, it was a very bad book, really, and that was the whole point—to tell her he’d given her away.
“He’s going to call on you tomorrow morning. He says he wants to get a good look at you in daylight.”
Lucy narrowed her eyes at Percy. If she didn’t love the benighted man, she’d wish him to the devil. “Like a horse.”
“Now, now, like a beautiful woman who needs no dim candlelight to shine. But—er—ahem—I would appreciate it if you didn’t divu
lge the precise nature of our relationship when you speak to him.”
“Of course I won’t betray you! Haven’t I been loyal for six years?”
He took her hand and kissed it, the only part of her body his lips had ever touched. “I know you wouldn’t mean to, but he might ask unsettling questions.” Percy was blushing. He had a great deal to blush about.
Lucy snatched her hand away. “Your reputation is safe with me. If your mother couldn’t worm it out of me the horrible day she came to visit, I doubt this Sir Simon will rattle me. But I will keep my fur cloak, Percy. It’s only fair. The red fox matches my hair.”
Percy sighed. “Oh, all right. It’s too hot to wear indoors anyway. But I expect Sir Simon will want to dress you in new clothes. Perhaps we can put my things in storage for happier days ahead.”
Lucy did not think there would be happier days ahead for her. In all likelihood, she would have to make the role of courtesan she had played for the past half-dozen years come true. The tiny bit of virtue she still possessed as a thief and a liar was about to be tossed out onto the cobblestones of Jane Street. “I haven’t agreed to become his mistress yet, Percy.”
Percy grinned. “But you will. I believe he’s perfect for you. I have a feeling about these things.”
Lucy knew all about Percy’s feelings, and wished she had never, ever put that peacock-blue hat in the window.
Chapter 3
After Percy went downstairs to celebrate the sale of his house with Yates, Lucy tossed and turned for hours, bunching up her tear-stained nightgown. In a fit of pique, she tore it off her head and tossed it on the floor. Now she was as naked as God made her. She supposed He’d known what He was doing, she thought doubtfully, but sometimes she wondered why He had not quite finished the job.
Around three o’clock, with the church bells bonging melodiously throughout Mayfair, Lucy stalked out of bed and headed for the whiskey she kept in her cupboard. This night—this morning, now—required strong drink to get through. Unfortunately she’d had to water down the ‘water of life’ to make it last, but it was better than nothing. Shoveling some coals on the fire, she sat naked, drank, and grimly surveyed her future.
She might seek employment with a milliner in town—she wasn’t well-known like Harriet Wilson and her sisters and would not be recognized. Percy hadn’t wanted to be seen everywhere with her except when he ordered their clothes at their private dressmaker’s appointments—he wanted to keep a low profile and wear his corsets and clocked stockings in privacy. Of course the Janes—the other courtesans on Jane Street—would know she had spent six years of her life here, but they were famously discreet. If Sir Simon Whoeverhewas didn’t like her—and how could he, she thought, looking down in the flickering firelight at her long, angular body in disgust—she would have to make alternate plans.
She was not going to keep thieving.
She drank her glass, then poured another. The bells struck four. By five she’d run out of whiskey and coherent rumination, and crawled back in bed.
And that is where Sir Simon Keith found her at nine o’clock.
He knew he was unconscionably early, but he was a busy man. It was best to start the day as early as possible, because, while he had invented a great many things, he still hadn’t figured out how to add hours to the clock. He’d rapped at the front door of the little house with no result.
But Lord Ferguson had given him a key, so he used it. A gust of wind blew leaves in on this bright October day, and he bent to pick them up and put them in his pocket. He may have been raised in a hovel, but he liked things neat now. The leaves joined the collection of roller bearings which kept his hands occupied when he wanted to think.
And this house was very neat, although not as furnished as he expected it to be. Empty squares on the tastefully papered parlor walls revealed where pictures used to hang. There was a sofa, one chair, an embroidered footstool. Double doors to a dining room led to three spindle-back chairs but no table. He examined the carpet—worn—and could see the impression where once the feet of a long table had rested. He pictured himself—after buying new furniture—having jolly parties with his mistress and men of industry who needed a light evening to be cajoled into investing in his enterprises.
She would be a clever girl, pretty, diamonds sparkling at her throat, sitting at the head of the table and charming the pants off the other gents. Not literally, though. Simon had standards, and he didn’t like to share. Ferguson had said his mistress was exceptionally tall, and Simon liked a tall woman. He was such a big brute himself he’d always felt awkward covering some little dab of a girl. Lucy had been perfect for him, and he’d grown four inches and gained three stone since he ran away from her. Good food and plenty of it had that effect.
Simon sighed, running his finger along the banister. No, he didn’t run away from her, but the circumstances. He’d be quarrying rock in Australia if he hadn’t slipped away.
Or worse.
Where was everybody? The house was dead silent. He knew Ferguson was in dun territory, but surely there should be a maid somewhere for his mistress.
“Hallo!” he called at the bottom of the stairs, and waited.
Nothing. Maybe Miss Dellamar bunked it, not wishing to be transferred along with the deed to the Jane Street house. He could see her point. It was slightly distasteful, and he wasn’t altogether certain he’d keep her on anyway, no matter how lovely Ferguson said she was.
But if they suited each other, it would save him the bother of finding a mistress. He’d been without a woman for too long. All work and no play had made Simon a very dull boy indeed. He was entitled now to a little fun.
Each Jane Street house was a little jewel box, holding a jewel of a woman. His prospective gem might not be at home, but there was no reason not to inspect the house. He’d visited an acquaintance for a gathering down the street a few doors down—there were only twelve houses in the cul-de-sac—and the floor plans were identical.
He climbed the carpeted treads. The first door at the top of the stairs led to a cozy sitting room. He entered, finding it filled with a good quantity of books piled haphazardly on rather homely furniture, the kind of stuff you might find in a country cottage, definitely not a brothel. Chintz and lace and what-not, feminine frippery. He was surprised there was no long-haired cat cluttering up the space. He picked up a book and read a few lines—bah, women’s stuff, some rubbishy novel meant to turn your mind from your troubles. Ruined castles and anguished dukes. Sheer nonsense.
A half-finished straw capote—Simon was well-versed in ladies’ hats—sat on a faceless form, strips of ribbon and hatmaker’s tools laid neatly on a round table beside it. How quaint that Percy’s mistress made her own hats, although judging from the form, her head must be enormous.
Good. He hoped she had brains. He wouldn’t want to be saddled with some empty-headed female. He was too proud of his own efforts to educate himself, late as they had come. Simon wanted someone to discuss the changing world with him after he’d fucked her, someone to tell his dreams to. He’d heard Jane Street girls were not only beautiful but brainy, the crème de la crème of courtesans.
The door to the bedroom stood ajar, and Simon looked through the opening. Blast. He’d presumed everyone was out of the house. But there, on the middle of the mattress was Lord Ferguson’s sylph-like mistress, Miss Dellamar—a Long Meg if he’d ever seen one. She slept—and snored—on her back, her face obscured by the corner of a pillow. Her covers and nightgown seemed to be crumpled on the floor, so he could look his fill with no obstruction to the rest of her.
Her skin was very white, as white as the sheets. She had no breasts to speak of, which did not bother him as much as it might have. His Lucy—well, there was no point in remembering what she’d looked like, but she had been small up top like this woman. Lord Ferguson’s mistress had a thatch of bright strawberry-blonde hair at her apex, about the same color as the braids that splayed on the bed. Titian red, just like in the painter’
s portrait of Mary Magdalene, he reminded himself, now that he knew something about art. He supposed it was fitting that Miss Dellamar had hair like a Biblical prostitute.
Lucy’s hair had been reddish too, but in their brief time together he’d never had the luxury of seeing it loose, falling down her back. In fact he’d never really seen her naked at all—just the odd few inches of skin as they hurriedly took their pleasure in one another in back streets and doorways in the dark.
The closest they’d come to a bed was in the back room of the hat shop when her aunt had the gout and was resting right upstairs. There had been an old stuffed chair—lemon yellow, it was, and he’d put Lucy on his lap. The look on her face had been comical until she realized what she could do. They’d been quiet with difficulty, and poor Luce was a nervous wreck thinking the old battleaxe would come limping downstairs any minute with every gasp she took.
Stolen moments for the boy who stole.
He could make all the noise he wanted now in this house—it was his, or would be in six days. Simon had the signed bill of sale in his pocket. Ferguson had wanted to give his mistress a chance to make other arrangements if Simon didn’t like her, or vice versa. He wouldn’t try to charm her if she took one look at him and shuddered. He was handsome enough—no one had complained—but he was one braw Scot, big enough to frighten away half the people he met.
Once he’d wanted to scare people into them giving him their valuables without a fight. Now he just wanted to get their money as investors, and it wouldn’t do to have the ton think he was some unlettered savage.
If Miss Dellamar woke up right now, she’d probably toss the pillow at him and more besides. It wasn’t very gentlemanly of him to stare at her nakedness when they hadn’t even been introduced, even if she was a whore. He’d come back later.
Simon took one last look around the bedroom. An empty bottle of whiskey stood on a little table in front of the fireplace. Lord Ferguson had said nothing about his mistress being a tippler. If she was, she’d have to drink alone. After he learned of Lucy’s death, Simon had lost himself for a bit. He couldn’t bollix up all his business plans again. Clearheaded at all times, that’s what he needed to be. And he had to admit looking at this woman’s glorious body, his mind was becoming somewhat foggy.
Improper Gentlemen Page 9
