A Much Compromised Lady

by Shannon Donnelly

  She wet her lips and almost knocked upon the door. Gathering her courage, she opened the door instead and stepped inside.

  The house was already furnished. Lovingly. Tastefully. Simply. Glynis walked from parlor, to dining room, to kitchen, to stairs, to hall, to bedroom, to sitting room, to sewing room, to stairs and the main hall again.

  From the upper back rooms, she glimpsed the back garden—a black-and-white cow contentedly chewed on daisies. He had even remembered the cow.

  But how had he found this place?

  And where was that devil?

  Ah, but that man could drive a sane woman to murder.

  Remembering her dream, she went to the front windows and looked out.

  He stood there, outside, as he had in her dream. Outside the gate, and far enough from her that she could barely see that black horse of his in the shadows of the trees.

  A smile trembled inside her. And so did her fear.

  But she knew now that it was not him she feared—she never had really. She had feared herself—her own passion, her love for him. She had feared she might end up leading her mother’s life, but she wondered now if that was such a bad thing. Ah, but it would hurt if he left her. When he left her.

  How much more it hurt now not to have him?

  And perhaps it would be enough to have memories of having loved him. She doubted it, but she longed desperately for even one memory of lying in his arms. She would dry up inside if she did not do this thing—she would not be her mother’s daughter if she backed away now out of fear and let this chance slip away.

  She would think only about today—about what she felt for him. She would let the rest be what it would be.

  Talking a deep breath, Glynis went outside to him.

  St. Albans watched her from the shadows as she came out of the house, chin up, more beautiful than ever, but looking very much the respectable lady in an elegant blue gown, with a pretty straw bonnet in place and gloves on her hands.

  She walked, however, with a stride that would put a forester to shame. She walked like a traveling Gypsy still.

  Leaving Cinder to graze on summer grass, St. Albans started toward her. “I need not ask if you like it, I can see my answer.”

  “However did you find it?”

  He shrugged. “I did not. It amused me to set Gascoyne to hunting for it when I thought I might have need of it to house a mistress.”

  She flashed a smile that looked forced, and he thought this had not been so very good an idea, after all.

  It had been two very long weeks, and two even longer days, since he’d had even a glimpse of her. He had thought that time enough for her to grow bored with her respectability, for her to come seeking him. Only she had not.

  And so when Gascoyne had found the house and told him of it, he had bought it for a princely sum—to save the trouble of bargaining.

  Now, he no more knew what he had been thinking then, than he knew what he was thinking now. He had acted on impulse, and he was damn certain it had been a folly.

  “Enjoy it, my dear. I am afraid I have as little use for it as I have for respectable women.”

  Turning, he strode for his horse. God, what had he been thinking to imagine she might run into his arms, and embrace him, and offer up her gratitude again. He had not been able to take advantage of it before, but he still wanted to.

  Her voice stopped him.

  “Gaujo! I will have you know that a woman who lives in a house paid for by a man who is not her husband is far from respectable. Not, of course, that I have much of a reputation left me since all London knows I lived with you.”

  Slowly, he turned to her.

  Chin down, she came towards him, pulling off one glove, dropping it and leaving it in the dust, and then pulling off the other. The smile curving her generous mouth set his pulse hammering.

  “Tell me, gaujo, is your reputation with women honestly come by? You cannot have earned it by knowing only how to please yourself.”

  He began to smile, and started back toward her. “That, my sweet Gypsy, is the secret of real pleasure—there is no difference between taking and giving.”

  The pretty straw hat joined the gloves on the ground, and she stood before him, so close her scent of roses wound around him—or was that the summer blossoms?

  “My dreams come true, gaujo, and I dreamed once of the two of us in each other’s arms.” Her hands wound around his neck, and she pressed against him until his senses spun. “And shall I tell you a secret?”

  He could only nod, for he had wrapped his fingers into her hair and he was taking far too much pleasure in pulling lose the pins that held its dark weight captive.

  “It was as if we were one, in that dream. And you told me you loved me.”

  Burning now, he swept her into his arms. “Love is an illusion, my tempting Gypsy.”

  She smiled at him. “So are dreams. Will you dream with me?”

  For an instant, he wondered if he could believe in her dreams. But that voice in the back of his mind warned him to remember his past—to remember who he was and what he was. He had been such a fool once. He was a damn rogue now.

  But she felt so right in his arm. So much a part of him that it seemed quite clear now why he had ached and missed her as if a limb of his own had been missing. And if that was the case, well, had not the earls of St. Albans always been best at looking after their own skin?

  He kissed her, kissed her until she had no more breath, until he was light headed and could no longer bear the distance of clothing between them. Pulling back, he gazed down into her flushed face, and he asked, “There is no need for you to be respectable just yet, is there, my sweet Gypsy?”

  Eyes dark, she smiled at him, and shook her head. “No. Not yet. Not ever. My Dej was right when she said what I need is a place. I have found that place here,” she said and wrapped her arms tight around his neck.

  St. Albans needed no more encouragement to lift her into his arms and carry her into the house he had bought for his mistress.

  EPILOGUE

  The Earl of St. Albans tossed back a second brandy, and through the open doors of his study he watched a housemaid arrange the flowers on the central hall table of Winters House. In less than two hours he would be married, and that seemed all the more reason to focus his attention on more immediate pleasures.

  From this angle he could not see the maid’s face, but the view she presented as she bent to select more rose stems from the basket at her feet stirred his admiration.

  “Tell me, Tuffy,” he said, half-turning to throw the words over his shoulder to the other man in the study. “Not that you have much experience with this mind, but you are a vicar, so you must give advice. How much of a sin is it for a married man to lust after women?”

  Terrance Hale—slim, still as golden haired as he had been as a youth, with a face still as young—stepped to his friend’s side and glanced into the hall. A slight smile warmed his pale blue eyes. “Well, I should imagine a wife could rightly object to her husband not lusting after women in general, since such a condition would include herself. However, considering your bride’s family, I should say the greater danger to your mortal soul would come from there, rather than from any wrath of God.”

  St. Albans’s mouth twisted. “Yes, but it would be amusing to see that hothead Gypsy fellow forget to act the lord of the manor. I have never seen a fellow grow so stiff so rapidly.”

  Terrance shook his head. “You have never taken my advice in the past, so I shall offer it now with the full expectation of not being heeded—leave young Lord Nevin to his own conscience. You shall have enough to deal with in starting your own family.”

  St. Albans frowned at his empty brandy glass. His own family. Such an ominous phrase. Hades, but he wanted to bolt for any place else on earth other than London.

  A soft voice behind him intruded and called out, “Simon?”

  Glancing around, he saw his Glynis, standing at the windows to his study. She had co
me in from the garden, her dark hair down and curling around those lovely, rounded shoulders of hers. Instantly, his mood lightened. At eight in the morning, his countess-to-be seemed to be wearing only a loosely belted dressing gown.

  Terrance cleared his throat, but St. Albans could not drag his eyes from his Gypsy. “Do excuse me,” Terrance said. “I believe there are some details awaiting my attention at St. George’s. Simon, try to at least check your impulses to make mischief today,” he added, his tone dry.

  St. Albans waited only for the door to close behind the man before he advanced on his Gypsy. “I thought it was bad luck for me to see you this morning.”

  “And I thought you did not want to hear any more wedding superstitions. Besides, it is only bad luck for you to see me in my bridal gown, and I am not wearing it.”

  He slipped his hands under the silk of her dressing gown. “So I feel. You are not, in fact, wearing much of anything. What did you do, climb down the trellis in your bare skin?”

  “Of course not. I used your secret stair. And it is too hot to put on my gown just yet, and you have to stop that, Simon. No, I am serious. I must ask you something, and I cannot think when you start to touch me that way.”

  Glowering at her, he took his hands away. Oh, blazes, was this all a mistake? It had been a year of delirious pleasure with her. A year and a day with him unable to stay long from her side. A year of arguments and passion, and of coming to loath leaving her bed, and of having to bear the whispers about her because of their association.

  After the third time he had had to knock some idiot senseless—for Glynis had sworn she would come to any duel that came to her notice, so he could not very well shoot every lout who cast aspersions on her name—he had decided he had better marry her, before he stood at odds with all of Society.

  The latter seemed far too exhausting.

  And far less pleasurable.

  But now she glared at him, and he wondered if this marriage would change all. Respectability. Such an ugly word.

  “I need a promise from you,” Glynis said, staring up at him, her eyes dark and the dressing gown slipping provocatively from one golden shoulder.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “My dear Gypsy, I am about to bestow upon you my name, my titled, all my other worldly goods, and to vow to worship you with my body—is there more you desire?”

  “Do not be flippant. This is serious.”

  He braced himself. A serious discussion. He should have expected this, for of course she would have demands. Jaw clenched, he waited. What flaw—or dozen of them—did she want him to change? What alternation did she want in their lives? Damnation, but he should have known the parson’s knot would be a choking one.

  Frowning, Glynis poked at his chest. “You have to promise me, Simon, not to reform too much.”

  He blinked at her. “I what?”

  “I mean it. I do not wish to have a boring husband who turns all prosy on me the way that Christo has—he wants me to call him Christopher, or even Nevin! Bah, as if I had not known him since he was born!”

  St. Albans’s arm stole around his wife-to-be. “Not reform too much? Does this mean you do not mind if I admire other women, and allow my imagination to stray a little when I gaze upon their fine figures?”

  Her frown deepened. “No, you could reform that.”

  He began to tug at the belted cord of her high-waisted dressing gown. “And what if I bring those ideas that cross my mind to your bed?”

  “Well, then perhaps your looking is not so bad, but only so long as you look and do not touch.”

  “And what if I perhaps indulge a little too much in drink and come to you, a touch bosky and more than a touch interested in your favors and your touches?”

  She pressed her lips tight, parted them and her tongue flicked out to wet her upper lip. St. Albans decided if she did that again they were both going to be very late for their wedding.

  Putting her arms around his neck, she said, “So long as you do come home that would be enough. And I would guarantee you a warm home-coming.”

  “Would you now?”

  Pulling his hands away from her dressing gown, her eyes alight, she stepped back. She unbelted the gown herself and allowed the garment to slide from her shoulders.

  His pulse jumped. With the light behind her, her thin silk shift turned transparent in the most delightful fashion. With another tug of her hands, that garment, too, found its way to the floor.

  She came towards him, hips swaying, wearing only a smile. “Would you care for me to show you how warm a welcome you would have, my lord?”

  St. Albans smiled. Ah, but they were going to be very late for their own wedding. However, the two hundred guests invited to St. George’s in Hanover Square—everyone in London, it seemed, wanted to witness the spectacle of the Earl of St. Albans marrying his half-gypsy mistress. A love match, some ladies boasted—quite rightly, too, St. Albans knew. But others shook their heads and frowned, and St. Albans was going to enjoy making sure that Society accepted his bride. They would have to, just as they would all simply have to wait for this scandalous wedding to take place. The Prince Regent included.

  With his arms full of his willing wife-to-be, St. Albans decided a family, his family, seemed not such a grim future. She would give him hellions for sons, and wild Gypsies for daughters. She would keep life forever interesting. They would, in fact, have the most notorious house in London Society.

  His fingers circled her wrists and he pulled her hands behind her back. And he dragged her close to him.

  She gave a contented sigh. “Ah, but it will be lovely not to have you leave my bed in the mornings...and in the afternoons...and in the evenings.”

  He smiled down at his Gypsy. His lovely Glynis. “My dear sweet wife, you have no idea of the pleasures yet in store for you.”

  She smiled up at him. “Then show me, my gaujo lord. Show me now.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Traveling Folk of England acquired the name “Gypsy” due to the belief that their ancestors came from Egypt. In fact, the original migration of the Rom (or Romany or Romani) began in India.

  As with any nationality, the Romany language varies in dialect and spelling, and I have used a standard that seemed most suitable to Regency England. To quote from Manfri Wood’s In the Life of a Romany Gypsy, “...the Romany spoken by English Gypsy today is best described as an English dialect that contains a certain amount of Romany slang and old cant...” That has been the feeling I hoped to convey.

  The Romany also, by tradition, have strict, internal moral codes, but were often viewed as outsiders, beggars, thieves, liars, and troublemakers. In other words, they received the usual suspicion thrown at anyone different. Since like often begets like, such ill will against the Rom produced ill will back, which encouraged the belief that they were troublemakers. Of course, such conflict is rich ground for a writer.

  You may note that there is no mention of the traditional Gypsy caravan wagon, or vardo. These brightly decorated, horse-drawn mobile homes did not come into existence until well after the Regency when mass manufacturing and better roads made the vehicle a useful adoption.

  This book was mean to end the “Compromise” series. However, there is still Christopher, the new Lord Nevin, to deal with. And I am not certain I can leave Bryn so alone. Their story continues in “Proper Conduct.”

  For more information on the Regency and other novels by Shannon Donnelly, please visit sd-writer.com

  July 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Shannon Donnelly

  ISBN: 978-0-9831423-7-9

  First published: 2002

  FirstPublished: Kensington

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

&
nbsp; CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE