Always the Mistress
Never the Bride
Book 11
Emily E K Murdoch
© Copyright 2021 by Emily E K Murdoch
Text by Emily E K Murdoch
Cover by Dar Albert
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 7968
La Verne CA 91750
[email protected]
Produced in the United States of America
First Edition February 2021
Kindle Edition
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
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Additional Dragonblade books by Author Emily E K Murdoch
Never The Bride Series
Always the Bridesmaid (Book 1)
Always the Chaperone (Book 2)
Always the Courtesan (Book 3)
Always the Best Friend (Book 4)
Always the Wallflower (Book 5)
Always the Bluestocking (Book 6)
Always the Rival (Book 7)
Always the Matchmaker (Book 8)
Always the Widow (Book 9)
Always the Rebel (Book 10)
Always the Mistress (Book 11)
The Lyon’s Den Connected World
Always the Lyon Tamer
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Emily E K Murdoch
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
About Emily E K Murdoch
Chapter One
Emma Tilbury had never been forced to resist tears like this in her life, but she was a fighter. She wasn’t about to give in because she wished the ground could swallow her up.
It wasn’t just the fact that the viscount was shouting at her. It wasn’t just because everyone was looking, murmuring under their breath as they stared.
No, it had to occur at the Earl of Marnmouth’s wedding. Her previous…protector, for want of a better word. After being his mistress and then being cast aside, Emma had been forced to fend for herself but had managed an element of respectability over the last two years.
No longer. Not now, she was having a blazing row at his wedding reception.
“Will you please keep your voice down!” Emma hissed, her tears thankfully refusing to fall. “People are starting to look, and I do not wish––”
“Nonsense, you love the attention, do not even attempt to deny it,” bit back Abraham Fitzclarence, Viscount Braedon.
Emma swallowed. She had to take control, and she could not allow this conversation to spiral. If only it were not so public––but then, living so much of her life in public, it should not be a surprise that it should fall apart so spectacularly.
She took a deep breath. She needed to end this conversation before the bride and groom noticed.
“You do not understand,” she began in a low voice, not daring to meet Braedon’s eye.
He laughed dryly. “No, you just hope I will not understand because it is easier for you, Emma, to retreat from real affection rather than live with the consequences of it!”
“I-I am not retreating!” Emma said, cursing the fact she had at that moment started to move toward the door. Anything to escape. “As I said, I am going to the Continent and will be there some months. Art, culture, the architecture of Greece, I am intrigued to––unhand me!”
As she reached the steps of the front door, the viscount grabbed her arm. Every inch of her skin seared with the connection, unable to pull away, captivated by his look.
Braedon’s light gray eyes were stormy. It was one of the things she had noticed about him from the very beginning, what felt like a lifetime ago.
“No, you are running away from me, from what we feel for each other,” he said in a low voice. “’Tis time you faced up to the truth, Emma. Time you faced up to love.”
“Love?” Emma repeated, despite herself. The fury boiling within her did not permit her to say another word.
How could he accost her like this, charge her with such pathetic accusations?
Why did he have to make everything so difficult––had she not explained it? Had she not made it clear, in the park, that it could never work between them: the viscount and the mistress? The man who was all goodness and joy, and the woman who…
Emma swallowed. “I am a mistress, and that is all I am good for. The gossip of the ton has surely told you that. I have told you that!”
“You think your past matters to me?” Braedon had not released her, and Emma could feel his fingers branding her, marking her as his possession. “We met when we met, we shared what we have shared––and now ’tis your future I want!”
“You are too late.” Emma wrenched away, unable to bear the connection any longer. “You want to save me, Fitz, but––but you cannot. I cannot be helped by anyone. I am beyond saving. I will be always the mistress and never the bride.”
Free from his grip, she managed to walk a few yards, turning away from the one man who had ever truly loved her. Knew her and still considered her the brightest lady in society.
He was wrong. If he truly loved her, he would leave her alone, but still, he followed, his boots crunching the gravel outside the earl’s manor.
“I do not understand why we cannot simply be happy!”
; Braedon’s words cut into Emma’s soul. They were miles from London, of course. She would need to find a way back––a carriage with a smiling gentleman, or a well-meaning mail coach, or––
“Emma, stop!”
It was her name on his lips that stopped her this time, not his touch. Emma turned. She had believed he was her rescuer, her savior who could protect her.
She had never expected to find these heights of joy and these depths of pain.
“I do not understand why we cannot just ignore the world and be happy,” said Braedon softly.
“Y-You know why that cannot be,” said Emma, her gaze dropping from his expression of adoration. “Besides, this…this only started a few weeks ago. You will soon find another woman to capture your devotions.”
His laugh was painful. There he was, Braedon, the gentleman who had promised so much. He was charming, handsome, an utter fool.
And she loved him.
“You think this only started a few weeks ago?” Braedon shook his head.
But Emma was not listening. Heart racing, she continued, “I should have known then—I should have seen it would not work. If only I could go back and tell myself, warn me of what is to come…”
*
Six weeks earlier…
Instead of tears, Emma was wearing a smile this evening. She had been careful to practice in the cracked looking glass back in her lodgings; it was imperative she get the balance right.
Too miserable, any gentlemen of means would avoid her. No one wished to converse with a moping miss at a card party.
Too happy, and they would have no incentive to wish to make her happy again.
It was a delicate art, but one Miss Emma Tilbury had mastered over a decade ago. A little light practice before an outing and five minutes of wrestling herself into her last real silk gown––the others having made a one-way visit to the pawnshop––and she was ready.
Not that she enjoyed cards overly. She never had. She preferred to play games she knew she could win.
But a card party was a very respectable way to make new acquaintances, and she was in need of new gentlemen in her mix.
That was why the elegant Miss Tilbury, who so many of Mrs. Marnion’s guests were quite excited to see, was moving slowly but surely around the room, ensuring she was noticed as much as possible.
That was critical. Emma knew if she was going to find herself a new protector––preferably one with a little surplus income––she needed to be quick. Her funds were running low, and it would not be long before she would be reduced to those circumstances where Marnmouth had first found her.
Emma’s cheeks flushed at the mere thought of it. She would not go back there. Never.
Besides, Marnmouth had finally failed her.
“We have parted ways. I have never lied to you, Emma. We are nothing to each other now.”
Emma smiled gracefully at a woman staring, obviously intrigued by the Earl of Marnmouth’s old mistress. She turned away, and Emma continued her slow but steady meander around the room.
She was not surprised at the gawping, the whispers, the intrigued looks. There was only one Miss Emma Tilbury, after all. How many mistresses of the great and good stayed in polite society after being cast aside?
Only she.
Emma knew she should be grateful she had been invited to this card party at all.
She took a deep breath and ensured her smile––not too happy, not too bleak––was carefully balanced. She was no longer a young debutante, ladies who seemed to fill the rooms of the great and the good with their dewy beauty––but she was still pleasant to look at.
Far more importantly, she was clever. It was her intelligence that was going to rescue her from the ignominy of pawning her gowns; she knew it.
“––which is why I told him it was absolutely out of the question.”
A phrase caught her ear, and its speaker drew her attention. Harriet Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. Harry, to her friends––not that Emma had ever been admitted into that select number.
She was conversing at the side of the room with a woman who looked utterly terrified. Eyes downcast, she had her arm linked with that of the duchess.
Emma smiled as she paused near enough to overhear their conversation. Lady Letitia Wynn. The wallflower, as she had been known before her marriage.
“And…and he agreed with you?”
Lady Cavendish snorted in a way Emma knew she would not have been able to pull off in polite company. Duchesses were able to get away with anything.
“Absolutely not,” said Lady Cavendish with a grin. “But then, when did the Duke of Axwick ever agree with me? No, he believed it was a perfectly acceptable change to the Season’s activities, but I told him he could not be further from correct if he had tried.”
Emma smiled, despite herself. It was always pleasant to know there were a few women in the upper echelons of society who did not permit gentlemen to have their way all the time.
Even if it was a petty discussion about the changes to the Season.
“I had always thought the Duke of Ax-Axwick to be a most reasonable gentleman,” said Lady Wynn.
Lady Cavendish shrugged. “I suppose he is––far too besotted with the old ways, if you ask me.”
Emma was tempted to interrupt. She knew the Duke of Axwick as well as they did, perhaps better. Axwick and Marnmouth were friends going back twenty years, and she had spent much time in his presence––though admittedly, not since his rather scandalous marriage.
But she held her tongue. Her intrusion, well-meaning as it would be, would also not be welcome.
Was it only a few years ago that she would be the center of a party like this? Emma thought wryly of the times these guests would be clamoring for an invitation to one of her own.
When she had been Marnmouth’s mistress, they had owned the world. Well, she thought. It had felt like it.
They had hosted the best parties, offered the best food and wine, and everyone who was anyone had been desperate to be on the guest list.
After their arrangement had failed…
Emma’s stomach twisted, and she turned away from the two ladies. She had to put her feelings for Marnmouth to the back of her mind. It had been two years. He had ended their arrangement, removed his protection, and now they were nothing to each other.
She may still care deeply for Marnmouth, but he didn’t care a whit for her. She needed to find a new protector––married or bachelor, it hardly mattered.
Emma’s gaze swept around the room. If only she had that damn ring back. She should never have left it in Marnmouth’s care, and now it was too late to ask for it back. He would hardly remember it, but if she drew attention to it, chances were he would examine it––and then she’d never get it back.
The room was packed. Mrs. Marnion had evidently moved up in society since they had last met, for some of the best and brightest names were here. The question was, who to talk to––or at least, who to allow to approach her?
Emma bit her lip. There was the Honorable Jacob Beauvale. A handsome chap and not the brightest man in the world––but then, hadn’t he wed someone just a few months ago?
The poor man would probably be far too infatuated with his new wife to consider an…entanglement.
Her gaze moved on. There was a man she barely recognized––Larnwick, wasn’t it? He was tall, had enough good looks to be considered charming. Emma wracked her brains. How did she know him?
Then the memory surfaced. Of course, he had left Marnmouth’s house before she spoke to him last week. What had she found out afterward?
A duke, and unmarried. Perfect.
Emma took care to ensure her hips swayed enticingly as she moved around a few of the tables where whist and rummy were being played, and by the time she reached the Duke of Larnwick, his eyes were slightly glazed over in that rather pleasing way.
Got you, she thought to herself with some pleasure.
“I am surprised to see you he
re, Larnwick,” she said intimately with a dazzling smile.
The duke returned it, eyes raking over her and liking what he saw. “You are?”
Emma curtseyed, ensuring he would have a view of her breasts, before continuing. “Yes, the latest gossip I heard was that you were retreating to Scotland for the clean air.”
Larnwick smiled, his eyes once more dipping to her breasts, and Emma moved her arms slightly to bring them together. It was an old trick, one she was not particularly proud of.
“Y-Yes,” said Larnwick, clearing his throat before continuing. “Yes, the air in Scotland is far cleaner, and yet the beauty of the ladies here is more impressive. Would you have me able to breathe, but with nothing to live for?”
Emma grinned. Finally, she was getting somewhere. Here was a gentleman who knew how to flirt and knew what she was looking for if that smile was anything to go by.
She could be in with a chance here. If he was amenable––
“Ah, there you are, darling!”
Their tête-à-tête was utterly ruined as a lady stepped over and pulled Larnwick’s arm into her own.
“And who are you talking to, my love?” said the unknown Miss dressed in that rather ostentatious way new money always did. “Please introduce me to her––my betrothed is so lax in the ways of society, you will have to forgive him, Miss…?”
Emma carefully removed all bitterness from her voice. “Miss Emma Tilbury, at your service. And you are…?”
“Miss Isabella Lymington,” said the woman smartly, looking down her nose at Emma. “Now come on, Larnwick, I need you. When we are married, you will have to protect me from cheaters at cards, and Mr. Lister is the worst cheater I have ever seen!”
Miss Lymington attempted to return to her table arm in arm with her intended, but she did not get very far. Larnwick did not move but instead bowed slowly to Emma.
“You will have to excuse me, Miss Tilbury,” he said with real regret. “I am needed elsewhere.”
They disappeared to the other side of the room, and Emma sighed. With a wife like that in the wings, she would never get near the man. If poor Larnwick couldn’t say no to his intended bride about such a small thing, he was unlikely to keep a mistress.
Always the Mistress (Never the Bride Book 11) Page 1
