A Precious Jewel

by Mary Balogh

  “Very pretty,” he said. “I see what you mean about color, Priss. The greens all blend together, don’t they?”

  She smiled at him. “Like a spring garden,” she said. “Is it not cozy? Will you come through to the bedchamber?”

  It was decorated in blues, as her room at Miss Blythe’s had been and her room at home. But this was her favorite room of the three because she had chosen everything herself. It was simply decorated but cozy, she thought. Even the coverlet on the bed was a delicate blue. She had turned it down.

  “I like it,” he said. “You have done well, Priss. And it is convenient, as you said.”

  “May I offer you refreshments?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, turning to her. “I just came from dinner at White’s.”

  She felt a little awkward with him. It was different somehow. She smiled, deliberately injecting that warmth into her expression that she had practiced so carefully during her training and used throughout her working hours.

  “You wish to go to bed?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She turned, comfortable again now that their encounter had taken its usual turn. His hands worked at her buttons.

  “This is pretty,” he said. “Is it new?”

  He had given her an allowance for clothes, part of the agreement that Miss Blythe had drawn up.

  “No,” she said. “I have had it for ye—” She stopped herself. “I bought it when I started to work for Miss Blythe. I am able to wear it now that the weather is warmer.”

  She slipped out of the dress and turned to him. As usual during her working hours, she wore nothing beneath. She smiled at him again, without conscious effort this time. And she was struck by the thought that for tonight and for as long as he chose to employ her he would be her only client. And she had always found it easy to please him, partly because his demands were so few and partly because in pleasing him she pleased herself.

  She lay down on the bed and watched him as he undressed. She liked his body. He was not particularly tall or particularly handsome or particularly muscular. He had none of the attributes of the ideal man of most girls’ imaginations. And yet he pleased her. To her he was beautiful. She reached out her arms to him as he approached the bed and prepared to accommodate her body to his.

  “Come,” she said, as she had not said since their first time together, “let me give you pleasure.”

  “In the usual way, Priss,” he said, and she closed her eyes, set her hands flat against the mattress, and raised her knees as he mounted her.

  “Mm,” he said almost an hour later, waking and turning his face into her hair. “It’s time for me to go, Priss.”

  “As you wish,” she said, her fingers playing with his soft curls. “But your time is no longer limited to one hour.”

  “So it isn’t,” he said, rolling off her and lying beside her on the bed, something he had never done before. He lay there looking at her. “It is a comfortable bed.”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling at him and settling the blankets up over his shoulders again.

  “I should go,” he said.

  She said nothing for a while but just enjoyed the feeling of lightness caused by the removal of his body from hers. She enjoyed seeing him lying there beside her and reveled in the luxury of knowing that she did not have to hasten him on his way in order to prepare herself and the room for another man.

  “Gerald,” she said, “I have had so much enjoyment in the past two days. You cannot imagine. It was like a dream come true to have a whole house to furnish yesterday.” She laughed. “I don’t believe Mrs. Wilson enjoyed herself, though. Her tastes are very different from my own. She wanted me to decorate this room in scarlet. She thought it would be what you wished. In scarlet! Can you imagine? You would not have liked it, would you?”

  “I like it as it is,” he said. “It is more you, Priss.”

  “I don’t believe I would be able to bring myself to entertain you in a scarlet room,” she said with a laugh. “I would feel like a wh—Well, I would feel uncomfortable.”

  “I would not have liked scarlet,” he said. “You were quite right, Priss.”

  “Well, there,” she said. “It is as I told Mrs. Wilson. I have known you for two months, I told her. I know how to please you. I had so much fun today, Gerald. I had the workmen put everything where I had imagined it going, and then I could see that almost nothing was right after all. So I moved everything until it was all just so.”

  “I hope you did not move anything alone,” he said.

  “Mr. Prendergast helped me with the heavier pieces,” she said. “But I had the feeling that he was impatient with me.” She laughed. “Not that I allowed that to deter me. I wanted my house to be just perfect. And I wanted it to be perfect for you so that you will be happy here.”

  He reached out a hand to cup one of her breasts and stroke its peak with his thumb. He had never touched her there before.

  “You have done well, Priss,” he said. “You are a good girl.”

  She smiled and swallowed against the ache his hand was sending up into her throat.

  “May I bring a visitor one afternoon?” he asked. “I have a friend who wishes to meet you.”

  Her stomach performed a somersault. A friend? Wanted to visit her? She searched his face for a clue to his meaning. But he had said that he did not wish to share her any longer.

  “The Earl of Severn,” he said. “He wants to meet my new mistress, Priss. He is in town for only a couple of weeks. He is in mourning for the old earl and will be back in the country soon. We have been friends since university days. May I bring him? I told him the decision would be yours, since this is your house.”

  She still was not quite sure of what he meant by a visit, but she could hardly ask him.

  “Yes,” she said. “Tomorrow, Gerald? Is he like you?”

  “Alas,” he said, smiling ruefully, “he is probably the most handsome man in all England. Not like me at all, Priss.”

  It had been a foolish question. No one was ever like anyone else. And no one could be quite like Gerald. He was one of a kind. She cared not at all for the most handsome man in England.

  “Will I be expected to swoon at his feet, then?” she asked, laughing at him.

  He grinned back. “Only if you really wish to impress him,” he said. “Otherwise a simple ‘how d’ye do’ will suffice.”

  His hand had moved to her shoulder and was rubbing warmly down onto her arm. And then it was at her waist, turning her onto her back again, and he was moving over her and pushing her legs wide with his knees once more.

  “Just lie still, Priss,” he said. “I really should be leaving.”

  She set her hands lightly at his hips, closed her eyes, and concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly. Sometimes the hardest thing in the world was to lie still and relaxed. Her inner muscles wanted to contract, to draw him more firmly into her, to draw pleasure inward. Her legs wanted to lift from the bed to hug him more closely. Her hands wanted to press more firmly, to feel his rhythm and make it her own.

  She lay still and relaxed, breathing slowly, ignoring the spirals of desire that curled upward from the area of his activity through her womb and into her breasts and up into her throat and behind her nose.

  “Ah,” he said at last, a world of satisfaction in the sound.

  She moved her hands upward to rearrange the blankets about his shoulders. She slid her feet down the bed so that her legs lay flat on either side of his. And she turned her face until she could feel his cheek against the top of her head.

  SHE WAS IN the parlor waiting for them, Sir Gerald was told the following afternoon, when he arrived at his mistress’s house with the Earl of Severn. He was glad of that. He was glad that she did not have to be summoned from the rooms upstairs. She had not offered the evening before to show him those rooms.

  She was looking very pretty, he thought with some pride when they were admitted to the parlor by Prendergast. She
was standing in the middle of the room, wearing a light sprigged muslin dress, her dark curls freshly brushed, that natural blush of color high on her cheekbones. She did not, as she usually did, hold out her hands to him. She looked at him rather uncertainly, a smile on her lips.

  “Priss,” he said, striding toward her, carrying the hand she finally lifted to him to his lips. “How are you?”

  Her smile grew in warmth.

  “I have brought the Earl of Severn to meet you,” he said. “This is Prissy, Miles.”

  She curtsied to his friend and blushed. All women blushed when they laid eyes on Miles. It was his height that did it, damn him, and the breadth of his shoulders, and his blue, blue eyes and thick dark hair.

  “Prissy,” the earl said, crossing the room toward her, his hand outstretched for hers. “I have heard such glowing reports of you from Gerald that I had to meet you for myself.”

  His blue eyes were twinkling at her, Sir Gerald saw with an annoyed glance. The earl bowed over her hand and kissed it.

  “Thank you for receiving me,” he said. “I gather that you gave your consent to Gerald last night.”

  “Won’t you take a seat, my lord?” she said. “I shall ring for tea. Gerald, please sit down.”

  Tea and cakes were brought in, and she proceeded to entertain them both for the next half hour, doing very little talking herself, but asking skilled questions that kept them—particularly Lord Severn—talking.

  Both men found themselves remembering stories from university days and laughing over them. His mistress’s eyes were dancing, Sir Gerald saw. He glanced at his friend. She was looking altogether too pretty.

  He had never held a conversation with her or in her presence. He would have thought her incapable of sustaining one. A man expected his mistress to have only one set of skills and one body of knowledge.

  His Priss had obviously been very well trained indeed by Kit. Her accent and her manners did not slip even once.

  He raised her hand to his lips again when he and his friend rose to take their leave. “Thank you, Priss,” he said. “I shall see you tomorrow evening?”

  She smiled at him.

  The earl cleared his throat. “I can see myself on my way, Ger,” he said. “I don’t expect you to leave with me.” He bowed. “Thank you for entertaining me, ma’am. This has been a pleasant half hour, and I believe I can see why Gerald is so taken with you.” He grinned and winked at her.

  “Devil take it, Miles,” Sir Gerald said when they were outside the house and on their way to Grosvenor Square, “can’t you allow a man to decide for himself when he wants to mount his mistress? I was with her all last night.”

  And had her three separate times before finally setting his feet in the direction of home at some time after dawn, he thought.

  “She is remarkably pretty and amiable,” the earl said. “I don’t wonder that she was Kit’s favorite, Ger. Who is she? No common milkmaid or street urchin, at a guess. A gentlewoman down on her luck?”

  “How the devil should I know who she is?” Sir Gerald said. “It’s nothing to me, Miles. She is my mistress. She has one function in my life. I have no intention of complicating matters by trying to find out who she is—or was.”

  “And yet,” the earl said, “I would guess that she would be well worth getting to know, Ger.”

  Sir Gerald stopped walking abruptly. “If you are planning to get any ideas, Miles,” he said, “you had better tell me right now and I’ll take a jab at your nose before I can remember that you could probably grind me to powder without even exerting yourself. You will keep your mind and your hands off Prissy if you know what is good for you.”

  The earl chuckled. “Relax, Ger,” he said. “I would not dream of poaching on your territory, my friend. Besides, your Prissy is far too sweet and wholesome for my tastes. My tastes run to far more voluptuous wenches. I regret Rosemary more than I can say. She doubtless got herself thrown out of Kit’s for refusing to work within the rules. Kit and her rules!”

  “I am very thankful for Prissy’s sake that she has them,” Sir Gerald said fervently while his friend turned his head and laughed at him again.

  PRISCILLA HAD A DELIGHTFUL FEELING OF FREEDOM and well-being. She was strolling in Hyde Park at sometime earlier than the fashionable hour, breathing in the warmth and the smells of early summer, gazing about her at the smooth green lawns and up at leaf-laden trees.

  She had been to the library and taken out a subscription. And no one had pointed a finger at her and told her she had no business in such a respectable establishment. The librarian had been courteous and friendly. She had a book by Daniel Defoe tucked under one arm. She was swinging her reticule with her free arm.

  The walk through the park was an extra treat she had granted herself in honor of the beautiful weather. She thought with some nostalgia of the roses at home. But Hyde Park was quite lovely, too.

  She walked a little to the side of the path as even at that hour there were carriages out and horses. It seemed that the summer weather was drawing people outdoors even before the hour for the usual daily promenade.

  She thought guiltily of how Miss Blythe would scold her for being out alone. But those days of having to live by rules, just like a schoolgirl, were over. She was free again and enjoying her freedom.

  She had Gerald’s visit to look forward to that evening, the first in almost a week. He had not called on her at all during her monthly period, but he would be there that evening. She had missed him.

  She had lived upstairs for the whole week, painting remembered scenes of home, singing to herself the remembered songs, which her father had so enjoyed hearing, working at her embroidery, writing poems—love poems, the first she had ever tried—and reading the last of the books Miss Blythe had loaned her.

  It had been a happy week even though she had missed Gerald. The week before that, her first in her new house, he had visited her three times apart from the call with the Earl of Severn and stayed for several hours each time, all night the first time. She had liked the arrangement. It was more like having a lover and less like having an employer.

  She liked to think of him as her lover. She still had fantasies of him as her husband, of course, but those thoughts were just that—silly fantasy, delightful during the times when he was with her, perhaps, but not to be dwelled upon.

  The idea that he was her lover was fantasy, too, of course, but less unrealistic than the other.

  Two riders were slowing their horses on the path as she approached. A barouche was coming from a distance away and a curricle coming up behind her.

  “Well, good day to you, darling,” a gentleman said from his horse’s back, raising his hat to her.

  Priscilla looked up, startled.

  “Are you going my way, sweet?” he asked while his companion chuckled. “My horse’s back is broad enough for two.”

  “No, thank you,” she said, continuing on her way, scorning to hurry.

  “She is one of Kit’s girls,” the other gentleman said. “Prissy, isn’t it?”

  “What?” the first gentleman said. “And escaped from Kit without a leash? You will be in for a spanking when you return, darling.”

  Priscilla glanced up again and saw that the second gentleman was a one-time client of hers. He winked at her.

  She walked on. The curricle came up behind her and passed. A gentleman was at the ribbons, a young boy in the high seat beside him.

  “I don’t think she wants a ride, Clem,” the second gentleman said. “A shame, ain’t it? She might as well enjoy herself, one would think, if she is in for a spanking anyway. I have heard that Kit has a very heavy hand.”

  “Shall I come home with you, darling, and speak up for you?” the first gentleman asked.

  But they were merely two gentlemen having their fun. They turned their horses with a laugh when they saw that she was not going to play along with them and proceeded on their way as the barouche came up to them. Priscilla glanced up as she walked on.<
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  She did not catch the eye of Sir Gerald Stapleton only because he was looking straight ahead. There was a young lady seated beside him, holding to his arm. A young lady who looked at Priscilla in some disdain and said something to her companion.

  They were past her and on their way so quickly that she was left wondering if it had all been a dream. But it really had happened and totally ruined her mood.

  Who was the young lady? she wondered, alarmed at the stab of intense jealousy she felt. She really knew nothing at all about Gerald’s life. She still did not know for sure if he was married or not, though she guessed not if he had so much time to spend with her, unless his wife lived out of town.

  Was the young lady his wife? His betrothed? The lady he was courting? She supposed that he might be thinking of taking a wife even if he was not married. He must be close to thirty years of age.

  She wished she had not seen them together. She wished she had not walked in the park.

  He was not ashamed of her, he had said. But of course she was not to be acknowledged in any way when he was with a respectable young lady—a lady who had never been forced to sell herself in order to live.

  Priscilla did not pursue the thought. It was against her nature to give in to self-pity. She had survived, and really she had done quite well for herself. She had no great cause to complain.

  But a little of the sunshine had gone out of the day.

  SIR GERALD WAS still in a fury when evening came. The week had seemed interminable. He had awoken that morning with a sinking feeling about the planned events of the day but with a lifting of the spirits when he had remembered that he would be able to call on Priss again that evening and every evening if he wished for another month without interruption.

  He had paused in the act of shaving, wondering how girls like Priss kept themselves from becoming pregnant. He had not given the matter a great deal of thought before. But somehow they did it. Doubtless they knew tricks that he was unaware of.