by Jenny Brown
At these words, something in Eliza snapped. The nerve of the man. Calling her a jumped up lady’s maid? She who was a direct descendent of England’s finest astrologer!
“I am no fraud,” she retorted. “I was trained in the practice of astrology by my Aunt Celestina who studied with her father, who was William Lilly’s great-grandson. Your insults can mean nothing to me.”
“Surely,” Lord Hartwood responded in an unpleasant tone, “though my insults may mean nothing, you must fear for your safety at my hands.” And with that, he reached out one languid hand and caressed her thigh. A shock ran through her body. No man had ever touched her in such a brazen way. She twisted her neck sharply, pulling away from him. The man was impossible. It was time to put an end to his nonsense.
“Your Lordship,” she snapped, “I, too, have read the novels of Mr. Richardson, which you have apparently confused with real life. Had you not caused me so much distress just now in the theater, I might find your posturing amusing. But though you may have the reputation of a Lovelace, I am no Clarissa. I am a woman of some nine-and-twenty years, quite past my prime, with my living to be earned, no thanks to you. And you have caused me quite enough trouble for one day.”
“Surely,” Lord Hartwood said, his hard look now replaced by something very akin to amusement, “though not Clarissa, you must owe me a little bit of terror. After all, I do have you in my power.”
“Oh don’t be silly,” Eliza countered. “We read Miss Austen now, not Mr. Richardson, and the ladies in our modern novels only run off with bounders when they fall prey to their devastating charm—not because some man drags them off in a closed carriage.”
“I am abashed, madam,” replied Lord Hartwood, “to find you do not consider my charm to be devastating.”
“I have no idea if your charm is devastating or not, for you have favored me only with your bad temper. Though, on reflection, I’d imagine you have charm enough when you choose to use it—at least, you would if you really have the Libra ascendant that’s on the chart I drew up for you.”
Lord Hartwood lifted one pale eyebrow. “So you truly believe that drivel you spouted to Violet? You actually think you can divine my character with your mystical documents?”
“There is no need for you to insult my art,” Eliza said firmly. As she spoke, a part of her watched in astonishment as she administered a set down to a man who was, after all, a powerful nobleman. He, too, appeared to be astonished. His deep brown eyes had widened and he was clearly having trouble maintaining the harsh expression the role he had taken on required. He removed his beaver hat with a flourish, revealing a startling mass of pale, tousled curls, and said in an ironic tone, “Accept my apologies, madam. In the future I shall refer to your art only with the greatest respect.”
“Thank you, Your Lordship. I am glad to hear it. But I am annoyed with you, too. I so badly needed the money Violet had promised me for my help. And I would have earned it, too, were it not for you. It was what I told her about your character that ruined everything.”
“But what you said was all so complimentary.” The expression of amusement still flickered across Lord Hartwood’s sensual lips. “I found it refreshing to hear myself described in such unfamiliar terms. A kind and thoughtful lover. A man who lives for love. I’m more accustomed to being compared to Byron—though my crimes are mild compared to what he’s accused of.”
“Of course they are,” Eliza said brusquely. “Lord Byron’s chart is far more afflicted than yours. I’ve studied it.”
But then she remembered with a pang that the birth time she had for the incestuous poet was accurate, coming as it did from Lord Byron’s mother who had consulted Aunt Celestina for help in governing her unruly son. She had no such certainty about the accuracy of the horoscope she had erected for Lord Hartwood. In fact, it was probably wrong.
She sighed. “In truth, I have my doubts about the information I was given about your birth. My interpretation would not have seemed so wrong to those who know you if the information you’d given Violet was correct. But if you had deceived her, it would explain why they laughed at the character I gave you.”
Lord Lightning’s eyebrows rose. “Do you have the effrontery to accuse me of dishonesty?”
As anger flooded over her captor’s handsome features once again, Eliza remembered he’d also earned a reputation for being a fearsome duelist. Had she not been a woman she was sure he would have slapped a glove against her face and demanded she meet him at noon in some remote spot where he could put a bullet through her.
“I accuse you of nothing,” she protested hastily. “But it was dreadful to be held up to ridicule like that when I so badly needed patrons. And I can’t believe I would have so misread your character if the birth information Harriet gave me had been accurate.”
His lips tight, Lord Hartwood said, “I was born on the twenty-ninth of July in the year ‘85. Exactly as I told Violet. There would be no point in lying. I’m the son of a nobleman. The circumstances of my birth are a matter of public record.”
“And the time of your birth?”
“At half past ten in the morning.”
“How do you know that?”
He stretched out one long and elegant hand, drawing her attention to the lace peeping out at his cuff and the heavy signet ring he wore on his third finger. “I was born the son of a baron, a possible heir, so these things were noted carefully. And besides, my mother always used to complain that I had interrupted her plans for the morning with my inconvenient appearance in her life.”
“If that is so, then the date and time I used to construct your horoscope were correct, and my interpretation of your character must be accurate, too, no matter what Violet might have said.” After giving this a moment’s consideration, she continued, “But it is strange that Violet, a woman who has been so intimate with you, should have preferred to hear something to your disadvantage.”
“Yes, very strange indeed,” Lord Hartwood said, his lips tight.
“She said you were cold and heartless. But that cannot possibly be true. You were born while Libra was rising in the sky—the sign ruled by Venus, planet of love, and besides, at your birth the Sun was in the sign of Leo which alone would give you a need for love far stronger than that of most other men.”
“Perhaps Violet could not see those aspects of my nature because she has not your gift of prophecy.” Lord Hartwood said quietly, “Though, of course, there’s another explanation. One you may have overlooked. Perhaps she learned something about my character in the six months she spent living under my protection. Perhaps they taught her that I am, in fact, a cold and heartless man. You would have been well-advised to have paid some slight attention to the unsavory reputation I acquired over the past fifteen years.”
Then, as if to punctuate his words, Lord Hartwood rapped on the front wall of the carriage, and the coachman whipped the horses into a gallop.
It would not do to have her treat her abduction as a joke. As bad as his reputation might be, it was such that nobody dared to laugh at him. Yet twice in a single afternoon this insignificant woman had done just that. Clearly, it was time to move on with his plan and put some fear into her. He’d had enough of her sitting here, full of complacency, her green eyes gleaming with pride at the thought of how well she’d sounded out his character. He twisted his lip into what he hoped was a frightening sneer and asked, “Do you know why I took you up into my carriage?”
She shook her head no.
“Your meddling, based though it might have been on your knowledge of the stars, has denied me the services of my mistress. But I must take a mistress with me when I go to claim my inheritance. The terms of my brother’s will require it.” That wasn’t entirely a lie, though it wasn’t the truth, either. “So,” he said, reaching toward her and cupping her chin in his hand as he fixed her with an appraising gaze. “Since you convinced my mistress to leave me, you will have to take her place.”
That caught her attention. Her
sea green eyes stared at him, wide with disbelief.
“Surely you’re joking.”
“I have never been farther from joking,” he said, hoping he could keep his sardonic expression from cracking. It would be hard work to keep up the pose of unbridled lust for long. With her schoolmistress’s air and her carroty hair tied up in a tight knot beneath her cheap lace cap, she was ludicrously unlike any mistress he had ever seen. Still, the threat would give her a well-deserved fright before he left her off at the side of the road, much shaken by her narrow escape and with a far better understanding of the high price to be paid for interfering in the affairs of her betters.
He favored her with what he hoped was a lascivious leer. “There’s no reason you can’t become my mistress. You’ve been alone with me long enough that whatever respectability you might have had before you entered my carriage is gone. Your reputation, should you have had one, is in tatters.”
A look of alarm crossed her face. Good. She was responding exactly the way he had planned.
But all she said was, “I can’t imagine I should make much of a mistress for you. It is years since I put on a spinster’s cap, and besides, I am covered with freckles.”
He roughened his voice. “Freckles or not, I need a mistress. You drove away Violet, now you must take her place.” Taking a breath, he let his tone soften as he prepared for the final insult. “Do not fear, Miss Farrell. Though I will ruin you, I will pay well for your services. I am heartless, but my purse is deep.”
As his words sank in, her freckles stood out more sharply against the growing pallor of her face. Her consternation was clear, which was pleasing. She would not laugh at him again any time soon. Now on to the grand finale. He reached out and slowly let his fingers drift along her shoulder, languidly drawing a line down the front of her dress, along the muffled curve of her breast. He lingered just above where he thought her nipple might be hidden under the thick wool and inscribed a spiral there. Her eyes widened with shock.
“So tell me, Miss Farrell,” he murmured, bending to whisper into her flaming, pink-tinged ear. “Will you become my mistress and yield your body to my lust?”
He expected her to shriek, or perhaps to faint. He drew on his military training to be ready if she were to strike at him. But there was only one reaction he had not expected: that she would raise her gold-flecked eyes and look deeply into his and then, speaking so softly that he had to strain to hear her, murmur, “Yes, Your Lordship, I’ll be your mistress. Yes.”
“Yes?”
Lord Hartwood repeated her assent in an odd croaking tone, and Eliza saw the haughty lord’s pale lashes flutter open in surprise. She, too, was quivering with shock at what she had just said. Had she really assented to his scandalous proposal? Had she gone mad?
There was still time to pretend she had been joking—to laugh off her assent and slap his hand away. The look of astonishment—or was it dismay—that filled his face as she gave her assent told her he hadn’t expected it. But she couldn’t bring herself to unsay the fatal word.
How could she? The bailiffs must be already at the house. Her few belongings would be set out on the street, to be hauled off later and sold for her father’s debts. And her father would be back in debtor’s prison. It had been only this morning he’d told her, “Be patient, sweetheart, my luck will change and I’ll pay your inheritance back to you, doubled in value. You wait, someday I’ll buy you a coach and four and you’ll ride around town like the lady that you are.” But his luck never changed. It never would. And now, faced with this monstrous offer, what else could she do but agree? Lord Hartwood’s coach and four were not imaginary.
But still, she must make sure Lord Hartwood really meant what he’d said. So after lifting his hand from her bosom and depositing it back in his lap, she said, “There is a condition on my acceptance, Your Lordship. You must immediately send twenty pounds to the warden of the Mar-shalsea and instruct him to pay off all my father’s debts.”
“So twenty pounds is the price you set upon your virtue?” Lord Hartwood inquired coolly.
“Is that too much?”
“Not at all,” he said quietly. “One of Violet’s earbobs would’ve cost that much, and I’ve given her far more than one. You shall have your twenty pounds.”
“And there’s something else,” she added hesitantly, her hand twining around the handle of her flowered bag. “I must save my books. They are all I have left and without them I cannot practice my art. They were my aunt’s, passed down to her from our ancestor, the great astrologer Lilly. If my father runs up new debts—and he will, for he cannot keep from gambling—the bailiffs will come and take them. I shall consider the sacrifice of my virtue well rewarded, if only my books can be saved.”
Well, that was a corker! He had heard many a hard luck tale from the women he’d taken under his protection: They said they sold themselves to help their sick children or aging parents, but never before had a woman sold herself to him to save her books. He looked away, unwilling to let her see how hard he was struggling to keep a straight face. When he turned back toward her, her face held such a look of strained anxiety that he knew she feared he would not agree to so extravagant a demand.
Gently he reassured her. “It is no great matter to preserve your books. I could send a letter for your father to sign, stating that, in view of the twenty pounds I’ve paid him, he signs over the ownership of all books in the possession of his daughter, which I will hold in trust for her. That way he can’t take them back even if he runs up further debts.”
“So my books would truly be saved?”
“Indeed,” he said dryly. “Though not your virtue.”
“My virtue can be of little interest to anyone but myself,” she replied coolly, reassuming for the moment that fusty schoolmistress’s air of hers. “Certainly its value must be far below that of my codex of Maternus—or the Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos of 1635. Besides, at nine-and-twenty I am well beyond the age where I could expect to marry. I can face the loss of my virtue with equanimity if I can save my books.”
She paused for a moment, clearly wondering if she could press for anything else. Finally she spoke. “There is one thing more. You must find someone to feed my poor Pup. Leaving him with my father would be like condemning the poor creature to death. But don’t give the money to my father. He would wager it away at cards.”
He nodded, but said nothing. She stopped for a moment, cocking her head like a small sparrow waiting to take flight. Then watching his face carefully, she added, “I do not wish to appear greedy, but I am afraid I must ask you for yet one other thing. But I promise you this will truly be the last.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” he said severely, folding his arms across his chest. What would she ask for this time? A peck of birdseed? A length of twine? Never before had he heard such odd requests from a woman he had taken into keeping.
She took a deep breath, clutching her hands together, and then hesitantly explained, “I must ask that you grant me twenty-five pounds more when our connection is over. I would not ask for it, except that I see no other way. When you grow tired of me, I must have some funds with which to reestablish myself and find a place to live.”
“Forty-five pounds, then, and some dog food,” he said in his most quelling tones.
“Yes, and that letter you promised, to save my books. I find these terms most satisfactory.”
The time was long past when he should have brought down the curtain on this ridiculous scene and left the little fortune-teller by the side of the road. But the glow suffusing her otherwise plain face made it difficult to pursue such a course now. The lesson he had hoped to teach her had backfired completely. Far from filling her with fear, his threat to ruin her had filled her with hope. So it was a puzzlement to know how to proceed. Though he knew for a certainty that his sins ensured his final resting place must be hell, he could not find it in himself to snuff out the hope he had aroused in such a forlorn creature.
And bes
ides, he really did need a mistress. A mistress was vital for the proper claiming of his inheritance.
But could he make a mistress out of such unpromising material? Even for someone as fond as he was of unlikely pranks and eccentric behavior, it was hard to imagine how such a scheme could succeed. Her freckled face bore no hint of the sensuality a mistress must possess. And who would believe her to be a strumpet when her manners were those of a country schoolmistress?
Yet he hesitated to dismiss her. While her looks were unpromising, the hope he had inadvertently kindled in her now lent a certain brightness to her features. She appeared to still have all her teeth, and her face, though thin, looked well nourished enough to suggest there might be some pleasing curves hidden beneath the shapeless bodice. Her neck was long and graceful, and her skin was flawless, like unglazed porcelain. He suddenly found himself wondering what she’d look like stripped of the figure-obscuring drab gray dress.
But what if she turned out to be a virgin? Deflowering maidens could be iffy and his tastes had never run in that direction. Plus, he needed a willing helper for the weeks ahead, not a miserable ex-virgin bewailing her ruin. Still, there had been a striking lack of wailing from the little seeress so far. She was a bold puss for all of her Quaker manners. And she was better than nothing, which was his alternative at such short notice.
So why not accept her ludicrous terms? Should it work out, as unlikely as it seemed, he’d have a brand-new mistress to bring with him to his mother’s home in Brighton, one who had the advantage of being easily disposed of at the end of the fortnight. Should it not, he could simply send her back to town with her forty-five pounds and the letter about her books.
In any case, the evening would be diverting. The chit offered him novelty. And he’d been known to spend far more than forty-five pounds for an evening with a woman whose favors had promised him far less entertainment.
