by Anne Gracie
And if that were the case, how dreadful would it be to experience it all again after she married Lord Tarrant. James. The thought of his gradual disillusion, his growing disappointment in her, was more than she could bear.
One unsatisfied, embittered husband was enough for a lifetime.
Oh, James was no bully, as Thaddeus had been, but any man surely would come to resent a wife who was cold in bed.
But to spend the rest of her life wondering—that was no solution to her problem.
James had offered her the prospect of bliss—and she wasn’t even talking about the bedroom. Companionship, and the chance to be mother to three delightful little girls—all her girlhood dreams revived. Well, most of them. One had to cut one’s coat to fit the cloth. Half a loaf and all that.
Not that James was half of anything. The way he made her feel, that lurking twinkle in his eye. He could meet her gaze, even in a roomful of other people, and make her feel as though just the two of them were present. The way he so often seemed to understand more than she was saying and accept whatever it revealed about her. He could even make her laugh when she was feeling down and despondent.
Only a few weeks ago she’d been facing a lonely future, relishing the thought of her freedom but unsure about what she wanted to do with it.
And then . . . James.
He was offering marriage, family and companionship. Of course he was being practical: he wanted a mother for his girls—what widower wouldn’t? And if her feelings for him were stronger than his for her, did that really matter?
How cowardly, and foolish, to reject all that because she believed she couldn’t satisfy him in the bedroom. Surely it would be better to find out once and for all. What did she have to lose?
It went against the habit of a lifetime to consider what she was considering, but she could see no other solution. This endless dithering was driving her crazy. With that thought in mind, she sat down and penned a note to Lord Tarrant, asking him to call on her at his earliest convenience.
* * *
* * *
He came the following morning, bringing with him the three little girls and their nanny. “I hope you don’t mind my bringing the girls,” he said once the chaos of their arrival had passed. “They’d already been asking could they visit you and Miss Bamber—and the garden—again, and Nanny McCubbin seems to have found a bosom friend in Mrs. Tweed and—”
“It’s perfectly all right,” she assured him. After a hasty greeting, the girls had rushed out to join Lucy in the garden, and their nanny had headed off to the kitchen for a cup of tea. “As I said before, they’re welcome at any time. Lucy and I love having the girls visit, and Mrs. Tweed enjoys Mrs. McCubbin’s company. She even lets Mrs. McCubbin help her in the kitchen—a great and rarely bestowed honor, I’ll have you know.”
“You’re very kind. My own house has very little garden—it’s just a courtyard with a couple of aspidistras and a few kitchen herbs—so the girls see your garden as some kind of paradise.”
“It is a kind of paradise, and I’m very happy to share it. Tell me, how did you manage to pry Debo away from her cat?”
“Separate Debo and Mittens?” he said in mock horror. “Perish the thought.” Then, in response to her raised brow, he added, “Can’t be done, I’m afraid. Debo will go nowhere without her cat.”
“But—”
“Oh, she’s here all right, with the kitten—which you might not have noticed was traveling as an indignant bulge under her coat, Mittens having a strong dislike of the carriage.”
“But if she lets it out in the garden . . .” Alice had visions of the kitten disappearing forever.
“Did I ever explain what a superlative nanny Nanny McCubbin is? She made a harness for Mittens, and then told Debo that she’d never manage to teach the cat to wear it—that cats cannot be trained.”
“Oh, how clever. Of course, Debo rose to the challenge.”
“Indeed she did, and it was a battle of wills that lasted several days and entertained us all. But now Mittens is out in your garden, wearing an elegant red harness as if to the manner born—Debo not having sufficient confidence in the manners of that ginger tom toward visiting kittens.”
Alice laughed.
“Now, what was it you wanted to speak to me about?”
The bottom dropped out of Alice’s stomach. He always did this to her, made her forget about whatever it was she’d been worrying about. Now all her earlier tension returned with a vengeance.
“Uh . . .” She tried to swallow. There was a giant lump in her throat.
His brows rose. “Yes.”
“I’ve been thinking . . .”
He inclined his head and waited.
“About . . .” She could feel her cheeks heating.
“About ‘um’?”
His euphemism for bedroom activities. She nodded. “Yes, I’ve decided to . . . to try it. Again, I mean. With you.” There, she’d said it. She waited for his reaction, her stomach hollow and her pulse racing.
His eyes darkened. His brows drew together in a slow frown. He didn’t say a word.
Did he not understand? Had she not been clear enough? Lord knew, her nerves were playing havoc, and she might not have made her meaning plain.
She took a deep breath. “I am willing to become your mistress.”
The furrow between his brows deepened. “My mistress,” he repeated in a flat voice.
“Yes.”
“I see,” he said after another long pause.
She waited, fidgeting nervously with the fabric of her skirt. The longer the silence stretched, the more she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. But she couldn’t unsay the words. And even though she felt as if she might throw up at any minute, she wasn’t going to back down from her decision.
After an age, he cleared his throat. “So, you won’t be my wife, but you will be my mistress.”
Put like that, it sounded terrible. Bald and blunt and ugly. And scandalous. But it was how she felt.
“Yes,” she croaked.
“Even though you dislike ‘um.’ ”
“I always disliked it with my husband.” She swallowed again. “But perhaps . . .”
His frown darkened. “You’re thinking that perhaps it might be different with me.”
She nodded, her cheeks aflame. “You did say as much,” she reminded him. Turn “um” into “yum.”
“I did, didn’t I? Well then.” He rose abruptly, his expression grim. “I’m going to have to think about this. I will return in an hour to collect my children. I’ll give you my answer then.” He strode from the room.
Alice stared at the empty doorway, confused by his reaction. She thought he’d be pleased, thought he’d jump at the chance, but he seemed neither pleased nor eager.
The drawing room felt chilly. Childish laughter floated in from the garden.
Was he shocked by her forwardness? It was hard to tell. But the way he’d so abruptly departed, without either accepting or rejecting her proposition, must tell her something. Though what?
She smoothed the fabric of her skirt and frowned. It was a mass of wrinkles. She’d made a mess of it, twisting and crushing it without thinking. Nerves.
Did he think her offer revealed her as a strumpet? Many men would think so.
But Alice refused to be ashamed. It was her body to offer: she was a free agent now and owed fidelity to no one. If he condemned her for it, well, she would be disappointed in him—more than disappointed if she was honest with herself—but she wouldn’t go back on her offer, nor would she apologize.
Lady Peplowe was right. It was time Alice discovered for herself what most other women found in the activities of the bedchamber. She wasn’t prepared to spend the rest of her life wondering.
* * *
* * *
James strode away from
Alice’s house, oblivious of where he was going. He was as tense as a wound spring.
I am willing to become your mistress.
He pounded along the pavement, his fists clenched in hard knots, wanting to punch somebody—no, not somebody: her thrice-damned arse of a husband.
Her face haunted him, so taut and pale when he’d arrived, then later blushing and hesitant, offering herself as if she were . . . he didn’t know what. All he knew was that he was boiling with frustrated rage at what had been done to this sweet and giving woman.
He wanted to marry her with all honor, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it: she thought she had to debauch herself first.
The hesitation in her eyes, the uncertainty. The courage it must have taken after refusing his offer of marriage, to then offer her body, to lie down with him in an act she was sure she would loathe. Had loathed. For eighteen long, blasted years.
And she didn’t even know how to kiss!
That bastard!
There were times when James caught glimpses of the hopeful young girl that she must once have been. All innocence and bright expectation. Before her pig of a husband had driven all the youthful confidence out of her.
But he hadn’t managed to kill off her sweetness. Alice had every right to be bitter, but there wasn’t a trace of bitterness in her.
If only James had met her back then, before she’d married that oaf. He would have married her—no, because then he wouldn’t have met and married Selina, which he could never regret, and they wouldn’t have had their precious girls.
But someone should have protected her from marriage to such an uncaring swine. He added her father to the list of dead men he itched to pound to a pulp. The man had been more interested in saving the souls of unknown—and probably unwilling—denizens than the welfare of his only daughter.
Crossing a road, he paused to let a wagon rumble past and realized where he was. Turning a sharp right, he headed down Bond Street to number 13, where he could get exactly what he needed: a furious bout of fisticuffs to work off his anger.
Entering Jackson’s Boxing Saloon, he encountered the great man himself, who bowed. “Lord Tarrant, how may I help you?”
“I need to go a few rounds with one of your men, Jackson, but I’ll warn you now, I’m in a foul mood and need to pound on someone.”
Jackson chuckled and said with dry irony, “You can certainly try. Follow me, my lord.”
* * *
* * *
Forty minutes later James was stripped to the waist, sluicing his heated body down with cold water. Several fast and furious bouts with one of Jackson’s best men had certainly loosened some of the fierce coils of anger inside him. He was feeling calmer and more clearheaded, not to mentioned bruised and aching—but in a good way.
He’d been a fool to walk out on her like that. More than a fool—an insensitive brute. What must she be thinking? At great cost to herself, she’d offered him a very precious, deeply personal gift, and what had he done? Walked out on her. Saying he needed to think it over.
Of course he didn’t need to think it over. Alice was his; she just didn’t know it yet. And if she needed first to prove to herself—or rather, if she needed him to prove to her—that the marriage bed need not be something to be endured, he would do it. With pleasure.
On the way back from Jackson’s, he paused by a little flower girl selling violets and bought a posy. Alice deserved better of course, but right now he needed to get back to her as quickly as possible and make up for the way he’d bungled things.
He found her out in the garden with his daughters and Lucy. They were gathered around a pair of easels.
“Look, Papa. Miss Bamber painted us a painting,” Judy exclaimed.
But James only had eyes for Alice. “I’m sorry I rushed off like that,” he told her quietly and handed her the violets. She thanked him, raised the posy to her face and inhaled the scent. He couldn’t see her eyes, couldn’t work out what she was thinking. Was she upset with him for rushing off like that? She had every right to be.
“She did one of me and Mittens, too,” Debo said. “See? It looks just like us.”
“Very nice,” he said, and nodded vaguely at Miss Bamber.
“Lina painted one, too,” Alice said, and James gave up. He couldn’t possibly discuss with her what he needed to discuss, not here, with his daughters clamoring for his attention. He turned to look at Miss Bamber’s paintings, and his jaw dropped.
He’d expected some kind of amateurish schoolgirl painting, but what he saw took his breath away. The main painting was an ink and watercolor of the big tree that grew in the center of the garden, as lifelike as if it were growing from the paper. “Can you see us, Papa?” Judy pointed excitedly. “Look. There we all are!”
Half hidden by the leaves of the tree and looking slightly fey, as if they were part of the tree, six faces peeped out; Judy, Lina, Debo, Alice, Lucy and himself. It was a commemoration of the Great Tree-Climbing Adventure. There was even a feline-shaped ginger smear that vividly portrayed an escaping cat.
He examined the tree painting carefully, then the one of Debo and her cat, then several others of the garden and one of Judy staring pensively up into the tree with an expression that made him want to pick his daughter up and hug her.
He turned to Miss Bamber. “But these paintings are marvelous, Miss Bamber. I had no idea you were this talented.” Lucy looked down, blushing.
“None of us did,” Alice said. “She’s kept it a secret up to now, but Lina winkled it out of her.”
Lina smiled proudly. “Miss Bamber is teaching me how to paint and draw, Papa. See?” She produced a pad filled with small sketches and paintings, and he slowly turned over page after page, examining each with solemn attention.
“They’re very good for a girl her age,” Lucy Bamber said quickly. There was an edge of defensiveness in her voice. Did she think he was going to dismiss his small daughter’s efforts? She did, he saw. As others had done to her in the past?
“They are very good,” he agreed gently. “Lina has always loved to draw, and I’m very grateful you’ve helped and encouraged her. Even when she was very small, she used to draw pictures on the letters Judy wrote to me. Judy wrote me all the news, and Lina brought it to life in pictures.”
His two older daughters looked at him in surprise. “You remember?” Judy asked.
“Remember? I’ve kept every last one of those precious letters. All the years I was away at war, they were all I had of you girls. I’ll show you them when we go home.”
He turned back to Lucy. “Miss Bamber, may I buy that painting of us all in the tree?”
“No, you may not.” She dimpled. “I’ve already given it to Lina.”
“Buy the one of me and Mittens, Papa,” Debo demanded.
“And the one of me,” Judy added. “Please?”
Before he could ask, Lucy tore both paintings off the pad and handed them to him. “Please, it’s my pleasure,” she said when he started to argue. “I don’t usually show anyone my work. You”—she gestured to the small group around her—“are the first in a long time.”
“I hope we won’t be the last,” he said seriously. “You have a real talent. I’m going to have these framed.”
“Girrrls? My lady? Miss Bamber?” a Scottish voice called. Nanny McCubbin appeared around a corner. “Time to come in for luncheon. There’s nice hot soup, so come along. You don’t want it to go cold. And wash your hands,” she called after them as the girls ran ahead.
“I’ll be in in few minutes,” Lucy said. “I’ll just pack up my things.”
“Then Lady Charlton and I will go ahead and warn Cook,” James said before Alice could offer to help. He held out his arm, and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it.
“I’m sorry I rushed off like that before,” he said once they were out of earshot. “
I hope I didn’t upset you.”
“Not at all.” Her voice was cool.
“You took me by surprise.”
“So I gathered.”
He stopped and, taking both her hands in his, faced her. “Alice, you did me a great honor this morning, offering me the priceless gift of your trust. I’m a clumsy oaf, and I’m sorry if I offended you in any way. If your offer is still open, I would be privileged to accept it.”
He held his breath as she gazed up at him. He was drowning in those sea blue eyes of hers.
After what felt like an age, she said, “I’m glad.”
They resumed their walk back to Alice’s house. “So what do we do now?” she asked.
“I’ll make all the arrangements.”
“What arrangements?” she asked, adding, “I’ve never done this before, so I’m unaware of the conventions.”
“There are no conventions in our case,” he said. “We’ll make it up as we go along.”
She gave him a sideways glance. “You mean you’ve never had a mistress before?”
“No.”
“Oh. I thought all men had them.”
“Not all men.”
“Then what are these ‘arrangements’ you’re talking of?”
“Do you plan to take me to your bed here, then?”
She gasped. “With Lucy in the room above me? And the Tweeds and Mary knowing? Of course not.”
He smiled. “And presumably you wouldn’t want to come to my bed, with my daughters sleeping upstairs—and I’ll warn you now, they have a tendency to jump on me in bed at appalling hours of the morning. Generally with a cat in tow.”
She laughed. “Oh dear, and do you sneeze?”
“Invariably.” They’d reached her back gate, and he held it open for her. “So, my dear Alice, will you agree to leave the arrangements to me?”
“I suppose I must.” She hesitated. “Do you know, er, when . . . ?”
“I’ll let you know.”
* * *
* * *
