Mistress by Marriage

by Maggie Robinson

“But Pope’s book came out months ago! Why would he be so desperate to hurt me now?”

  “They say revenge is a dish best served cold. Things have not been easy for him of late. His position in society is tenuous at best. Most decent people cut him.”

  “As they should! He’s a horrible, horrible man.” Caroline shuddered, remembering the night Lizzie came to her.

  “Until we know the precise nature of the threat against you, it’s best if you limit your activities. I can escort you when necessary.”

  The thought of Edward looming over her everywhere she went sent a little thrill through her, not that she went out much anymore. “But your valet can do that.”

  “So he can if he must. But I would prefer to see to your safety myself. You are my wife, Caroline.”

  “Just for the time being.”

  Edward looked away. “About the divorce—”

  “Just one disaster at a time if you please! I’ll allow you to move in until we get all this nonsense settled. It shouldn’t take more than a few days for your Mr. Mulgrew to do his detecting. But I will not share a bed with you again, not ever. I want that to be very clear.” Caroline hoped she sounded resolute. All she really wanted was to be enveloped in Edward’s arms. Feel his wiry strength. Smell the lime of his aftershave.

  And not simply because she was afraid of this amorphous threat. Perhaps she should be, but she wasn’t. She feared herself. She wanted Edward as she always had, and he would break her heart as he always had. He needed to be kept at arms’ length if she were to move forward with her life—if she had a life to live.

  Oh, she was being melodramatic, worthy of one of her featherbrained heroines. Surely her life wasn’t really in danger. Andrew might have gone to Edward as some sort of deranged joke. He’d always had a very odd sense of humor, although Nicky’s death had changed him irrevocably.

  She could put up with Edward for a day or two. Perhaps even as long as a week. And then—

  “I’ll let Mrs. Hazlett know you’re staying for dinner.”

  Edward smiled. “And breakfast, too.”

  Chapter 12

  Henrietta hung shackled to the walls of the dungeon, each hopeless cry echoing on the damp walls like the laugh of The Devil.

  —The Grenadier’s Ghost

  He was an idiot. He could have hired a hundred men to protect Caroline. But no. Instead he was sleeping on the floor beside her bed.

  Of course, he wasn’t sleeping. How could he when every sigh, every stretch, every shake of the covers reverberated in the bedroom like a shotgun. And her scent—jasmine and clean skin and Caroline—was driving him absolutely mad. He was as hard as the floor.

  After a relatively civilized supper, he had every hope of joining her in bed under that intriguing mirror. There were times during dinner when Edward thought Caroline was actually flirting with him over the filet of Dover sole and baked figs. She had changed into another low-cut red dress, and damn if the color was not growing on him. The contrast between its ruby brilliance and the pearl of her body was entirely entrancing. She had swept her coppery curls up with garnet clips and needed no rouge or lip salve on the warm August night to lend her color. Edward had lost his train of thought several times while he basked in her beauty.

  When the time came to retire, Caroline had handed him a pillow and a sheet and invited him to sleep on the little couch in her upstairs purple parlor. Unless he wished to triple-up with Cameron and the kitchen boy in the attic, she had suggested sweetly. Edward had tried to oblige, but he was a long man and the couch was short. It didn’t take any time at all before he was tapping on her bedroom door, reminding her he could better protect her if they were in the same room. Caroline had pointedly pointed to the floor.

  So he was wakeful and woebegone. She had the audacity to be asleep, gently snoring. He didn’t remember her snoring during their marriage, but then he’d rarely spent the entire night in the same bed with her. He had taken his pleasure—an unseemly amount of pleasure—then retreated to the propriety of his own rooms, just as all men of his station did. If he had ever noticed Caroline’s disappointment as he untangled himself from her arms, he had shut it out of his ordered existence and gone about the business of being Baron Christie. No Christie had ever allowed himself to become the victim of his animal nature, and apart from Edward’s precipitous proposal, he had managed to confine Caroline’s power over him to the hours bracketing midnight. The last weeks of their reacquaintance on Jane Street, he’d been so sated he’d actually slept right through to morning. But he was definitely dissatisfied tonight, in need, in agony. The thought of Caroline, fragrant and warm, so very close above him, was enough to keep every inch of him alert—his cock in particular.

  Punching down the pillow, he rolled away on the carpet, snagging his nightshirt under him in a bulky lump. After a few seconds of frantic tugs, all was smooth again, but certainly not comfortable. The French windows were open to the night air of Caroline’s garden, and its perfume joined with hers to permeate his senses and make sleep impossible. Edward pulled himself up and stepped onto the little balcony overlooking the walled yard, wishing he had a cheroot or brandy to soothe his nerves. His nightshirt tented comically in front of him.

  All seemed quiet on Jane Street and in the houses beyond. Here and there a flicker of candlelight indicated someone else was as wide awake as he was. Night jasmine, planted not for its beauty but its fragrance, lay below, its pale yellow blooms faint in the bright moonlight. The only sound came from the Marquess of Conover’s garden fountain two doors down. It splashed like a regular rainfall, possibly soothing someone, but not Edward.

  He had heard in his club that Conover was getting married again, to some childhood friend. The man had wandered across the world for a decade. Perhaps this new wife would keep him home, steady him as Alice had done to Edward, providing him with a well-ordered household and dependable affection.

  Not like Caroline. While her dinners were served on time, one never knew what mad dish would be under the covers. She collected cookery books much as some women collected porcelain figurines, nearly forcing his cooks to quit with her interfering ways, both in town and in the country. Edward had finally forbidden her from the kitchens to protect his staff and the assault to his stomach.

  Caroline was all spice—ginger and hot pepper, curry and cardamom. She kept an herb patch in the city—leaves of something exotic had seasoned his soup tonight. Taking a deep breath, he inhaled the tiny Eden she had created below to blanket out the rest of London. He tensed as a rustle came from bushes, but it was only Caroline’s cat. Harold had taken one look at Edward earlier and decided to spend the night outdoors. The cat’s green eyes glowed up at him in disdain, then disappeared into the shrubbery.

  Shunned by the cat. Shunned by Caroline. He supposed he deserved it. Edward felt rather useless. The safety of Jane Street’s inhabitants was assured by the hired watchmen who stood armed at the gates with their list. Leaving his man Cameron there by day was more than likely enough to protect Caroline, but Edward had not been content with that solution. He wanted to see Caroline again after the abysmal weeks of staying away.

  Devil take him. He was damned no matter what happened. Had been damned from the moment Caroline Parker stepped beneath the chandelier in all her crimson glory at Lady Huntington’s ball.

  “Edward? What’s the matter? Is someone out there?”

  She whispered, but he heard her anxiety. He had frightened her by simply standing at the window thinking too much. “No, Caro. Everything is fine. I just couldn’t sleep.”

  “Well, you would choose to sleep on the floor instead of the couch.”

  “I’d much rather be in your bed,” he mumbled.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing. Go back to sleep.” He heard her strike the flint and the bedside candle flared along with her laughter.

  “Good heavens. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen your hair so disordered.”

  Edward ran his hand thro
ugh his straight dark hair. He was in desperate need of a haircut. “Cameron can give me a trim tomorrow before I leave for Parliament.”

  “I could do it. I used to cut my brother Nicky’s hair.”

  “Well, you won’t cut mine. I wouldn’t trust you near me with a pair of scissors.”

  Caroline chuckled. “I’m no Delilah. And I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head. Or hurt you anywhere else.”

  By God, he wished she would hurt him. What he wouldn’t give for her hands to be all over him, nails raking, fingers probing. Her sleep-honeyed voice alone was making him crazy. “I’m going below stairs for something to drink. May I bring anything back to you?” He watched her stretch into the pillows, her full round breasts straining against the filmy material of her nightdress, the dusky pink of her nipples visible. He suppressed a groan.

  “I’ll come with you. I know I shouldn’t be hungry, but I am.”

  He’d always been amused by Caroline’s appetite. She was not one of those pale, dainty things that minced their food into bird-like portions. During their marriage, he sometimes thought she’d gone without food during her youth and was making up for it. She could make a banquet of apples from his orchard, hitching up her skirts and climbing the tree herself. Her choice of outlandish dishes, her love of vibrant color, her childlike enthusiasm to try new things—they should have warned him from the first. She was entirely unsuitable. Cheerfully unsteady. He’d made them both suffer for his thoughtless lust.

  For that was all he felt, wasn’t it? Pure lust—with a dash of territorial protectiveness to keep what was his safe. For she was still his, at least in the eyes of the law.

  “Suit yourself,” he said gruffly. “I can’t stop you.”

  “No, you can’t.” She bounced out of bed, the candleholder wavering in her hand and casting gobliny shadows in the room. “It is still my home, for as long as I live, at least according to those papers Will Maclean drew up for you. Tenancy for life. Very generous terms for a fallen woman like me, according to him. He was quite put out about it as I recall. But,” she said, a mischievous smile on her face, “perhaps you want this mysterious duo to kill me off. I imagine you’d get a pretty penny for the house if you sold it.”

  “Don’t be absurd. I’d not give up the comfort of Christie House and find myself on your dusty floor if I wanted you dead.”

  She reached up and stroked his cheek. Her fingertips were warm and gentle. Edward felt as if five butterflies had landed, causing his skin to tingle. “Poor thing. I’m sure the floor is not dusty. Mrs. Hazlett would permit no such thing.”

  “Hmpf.” He wished she’d drop her hand. He wished she’d drop it lower. He stepped backward. “What do you suppose she has in the larder?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know. She’s quite immune to my suggestions.”

  “A wise woman.”

  Caroline swatted at him. “How can you say that? I’m quite a good cook, you know. I taught myself after a bit of trial and error. Just because you never eat anything but dull and bland and boring fare—”

  “Are you calling me dull and bland and boring?”

  She shrugged. “Dull and boring—I’m repeating myself, aren’t I? Not very accomplished for a wordsmith, but it is very late and I’m very tired. You must admit you are not one bit adventurous when it comes to your palate.”

  For an instant, Edward remembered how she tasted when he kissed her smooth pink inner folds. Sweet. Tangy. Undeniably Caroline. He wondered if she had allowed her nether hair to grow back in the time they had parted, and wondered too if she would ever permit him to taste her there again. His mind in a fog, he bumped into a table in the hallway.

  “Watch your step. If you fall, you’ll wake the whole household.”

  Edward concentrated on navigating down the stairs. He’d concentrate on another deadly sin, gluttony. He’d torture himself watching Caroline eat, licking her lips and fingers, biting into some juicy morsel with relish. He shivered as they reached the landing.

  “You aren’t cold, are you? I vow, I’ve never experienced a hotter summer.” Tempting tendrils had escaped from her strict braid, and she pushed them behind her ears. She had not donned a robe for their late night snack, so her ripe body was on display under the sheer nightdress. Edward was certain she must be aware of the image she presented, saucy and sweetly disheveled. Caroline was deliberately setting out to make him the sorriest man in England.

  She flitted around the kitchen, lighting lamps which only illuminated her near-nakedness. He’d had the sense to put on his dressing gown, which at least disguised his rampant manhood from her too-knowing silver eyes. It was hotter than hell, but he belted the robe tighter.

  “Now, let’s see. You said you were thirsty. Ale or wine? Or perhaps tea? I could put the kettle on.”

  The thought of hot liquid vying with his hot blood was too much for the summer night. “Just water, if you please.”

  She set a tumbler and a jug before him. “See? Just as I said. Dull. I keep a very good cellar. Some wine might help you sleep.”

  Some wine would loosen his tongue. Loosen his resolve. There was something to be said for the watchful tension he felt in Caroline’s presence. He shook his head and poured a splash of water into the glass. As he drank, he examined her pert backside as she assembled a plate at the sideboard. It resembled the peach she balanced on the scalloped edge. “You will join me, I hope. I’ve fixed enough for two.” She placed the little feast beside him and dragged a chair closer.

  It was simple fare—two thick slices of bread, a wedge of cheese, a cluster of grapes, two figs, and the golden peach. Caroline popped a deep purple grape in her mouth and sighed. “Almost as good as wine. I forgot it. There’s a half bottle left from our dinner in the pantry. Would you get it please? And a glass, too.” She ripped a corner off her bread with determination and held it under her nose. “There’s nothing I love so much as the smell of fresh bread.” She smiled up at him and extended the chunk to his mouth, brushing it against his lips. “Isn’t it divine?”

  Edward had no choice but to eat it. It was damn good bread. Caroline nibbled on another piece topped with a sliver of cheese and offered him the same, the ribbon tie of her nightdress slipping down her shoulder. She leaned forward seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was losing what little clothing she had on. From his height advantage, her breasts were impossible to conceal from his starved gaze. No amount of food would quell that particular desire. Once he finished chewing, he reared up quickly from his chair to fetch the wine. He was glad to escape, glad to get away from the sinful bread and cheese and his entirely enticing wife. If bread and cheese had that effect on him, what would happen if she served him oysters? He knocked his forehead into the cabinet in an attempt to draw his blood upward.

  “Edward? What was that noise?”

  “Nothing, nothing. I’m just clumsy tonight.” Grasping the bottle of wine and a goblet, he returned to the kitchen and poured them a healthy tot. Caroline was in the midst of a fig, its jewel-like center glistening in the lamplight. Her tongue darted across her lower lip to catch a sticky wayward seed. He downed his wine in one swallow.

  “Here. Let me cut up the peach. They seem to be especially delicious this year. I meant to make some peach chutney, but they are too good to spoil with vinegar and onion.” She picked up the silver fruit knife and sliced through to the stone, carefully pulling the peach in half. Edward stared at the golden circle in her palm, its juicy center tinged deep pink. Dear God.

  “I’m not hungry,” he rasped.

  “You don’t know what you are missing.” Her teeth sank into the flesh of the fruit and her eyes closed in bliss. “So very sweet, Edward. You must taste it.” She held out the peach half. He would choke on it, but she was not to be resisted. He took a bite and the consummate flavor of summer burst in his mouth. He’d never tasted anything so incredible in all his forty years.

  Except for Caroline. She would taste of peaches and herself tonight, a combinati
on he could no longer fight. She was busy with her own half of heaven, clear nectar edging from the corner of her mouth. Edward longed to lick her clean and make her dirty again on the spotless kitchen table. He imagined her arching up against him, her flimsy nightrail tattered—no, torn off and thrown in the banked fire. She would be as golden as the peach, beneath him in the amber lamp-light, as pink within and hot as the summer night. He could feel her hands sweep his back, hear her fevered cries, bury himself so deep—

  Her cool hand on his cheek broke the spell. There was nothing but concern in her huge gray eyes. “Edward, are you ill? You look very odd.”

  He mopped his brow with a linen napkin. “You’re right. It’s excessively warm this evening. I think I’ll just step out into the garden. Try to catch a breeze.”

  “Mind Harold. He’s out there somewhere. I don’t know why he dislikes you so.”

  Edward knew why. Anyone who usurped his pillow in his mistress’s bed was the enemy. Well, Harold had nothing to worry about. Edward was relegated to the floor forever.

  Caroline stifled her giggle just long enough to hear the tradesmen’s door close. Oh, but she was wicked. When she had woken up to find Edward on the balcony, his body lit by moonlight, she had seen how very, very uncomfortable he was, and not from lying on her carpet. The man was stiff as a poker and nearly as long. She had done nothing that past half hour but prolong his agony.

  She straightened the strap of her nightrail. Usually she wore something prim and practical to bed, but tonight she had sent Lizzie to Victorina’s to borrow the indecent bit of tissued silk. Even if Edward was moving in because of some sudden urge to become her knight in shining armor, she did not want him to get complacent—to take her for granted as he had. Oh, she knew it would not be long before he was elevated from the floor to the mattress, but he would have to suffer a bit first.

  She sipped her wine and plucked a few more grapes from the stem. She really was famished. Food had become much too comforting to her since Edward disappeared again. It was a good thing Mrs. Hazlett didn’t permit her in the kitchen, else she’d be up to her eyelashes sampling new recipes that she surely didn’t need. All her new crimson clothes would soon be useless to her.