The Mistress' House Read online

  He moved very quickly, stepping between her and the door. Anne was suddenly breathless, cursing the quick tongue that her mother had always said would get her into trouble. To tell a peer of the realm that he wasn’t a gentleman… Men ended up fighting duels over insults like that. What might he do to a defenseless woman alone in a shadowed room?

  “If your definition of being a gentleman includes agreeing to ruin you, I must admit to being intrigued.” His hand came to rest on her shoulder, turning her around to face him once more. “Let me take a better look.” He drew her closer to the fire, moving her so the light fell across her face.

  Anne didn’t resist. Her breath seemed to stick in her throat. He was so big. He towered over her, and there was a hint of brandy on the warm breath that brushed her cheek. She looked past him, trying not to take in the scent. But her gaze skittered back to his face.

  She hadn’t expected him to be quite so handsome. She’d anticipated that he’d be attractive—how could a man be a rake if he wasn’t?—but she’d thought his appeal to women would probably lie in an aura of hard-edged masculine danger, rather than in sheer looks.

  His deep brown hair was fashionably short, and the color of his eyes was difficult to identify in the firelight. They were dark—she knew that much. Though he was well dressed in a midnight-blue coat with snowy linen and a remarkable diamond stickpin in his cravat, she thought he was too much of an athlete to be a dandy. There was no mistaking the air of power about him. She could no more have broken free of his hold than she could have ripped the mantel from the wall. Yet he was not forcing her; when he’d urged her to move closer to the light, she’d simply found herself wanting to cooperate.

  “My, you are a beauty, aren’t you?” he said.

  “I am generally accounted to be passable, though of course not in the first stare of fashion.”

  “Well, it would be a shame to waste all your effort.”

  “My effort?” She looked directly at him.

  “It must have taken some planning to elude your chaperone and leave the ballroom unnoticed. Such industry should be rewarded.” Slowly, his arms slipped around her, drawing her close.

  She looked up into eyes that seemed very dark, very large… very near. His lips brushed her cheek softly and then settled firmly onto her mouth.

  Every muscle in her body tensed.

  He didn’t seem to notice. But then he wouldn’t, Anne told herself. Because men didn’t.

  He lifted his head a fraction. “Oh, you can do better than that. If you really want to be ruined, my dear, you’ll have to cooperate a bit.”

  She took hold of her courage and concentrated on relaxing her lips.

  He kissed her again, tasting, caressing, teasing. “That’s more like it,” he whispered, and only then did she realize she had opened her mouth for him. His tongue gently invaded, doing terrifying things to her pulse, to her knees—how was it that a kiss could make her knees go weak?

  He set her aside, patted her shoulder, and said, “There. You’re ruined. Just do be careful who you tell about it, for most of your acquaintances won’t believe you. Now go back to the ball and stop being such a silly little girl.”

  And before Anne could so much as stamp her foot—much less find her voice—he was gone.

  ***

  Thorne paused in the dining room, where supper was being laid out, to help himself to a brandy. Lord knew he could use one. What the hell was wrong with him, kissing debutantes in the dark? He was damned lucky there hadn’t been a chaperone lurking.

  In fact, he might not be out of the woods yet. If his little conquest wasn’t as tight-lipped at talking as she was at kissing, he might find a father on his doorstep in the morning, demanding that the banns be read. Where were his wits, anyway?

  And what the hell was that girl up to? I want you to ruin me. She hadn’t the vaguest idea what she was playing at, that was plain enough.

  Thorne was so absorbed in his thoughts that when Lord Hastings called his name, he jumped six inches. Hastings had daughters, he seemed to recall. Could she have been one of them…? But Hastings only wanted to talk about a horse he’d seen that morning at Tattersall’s.

  By the time Thorne returned to the ballroom, he’d had two more brandies and managed to talk himself down out of the boughs. But he lurked at the edge of the room, leaning against a pillar and looking for her.

  Only, he assured himself, in order to stay as far away as possible.

  Lady Stone sidled up beside him. “Are you enjoying my party, Thorne?” Her beady gaze was still as sharp as it must have been when she’d made her own debut forty years earlier, and she used it to skewer him to the pillar.

  “You’re looking quite handsome tonight. Very convenient for you young bucks, the new a la Brutus curls. One can never be quite certain whether you’ve just left your mirror or you’ve been lurking in the music room with a female running her fingers through your hair.”

  He tore his gaze away from the crowd. “Now, Lucinda. Just because a man has a reputation as a bit of a flirt, that’s no reason to assume that he’s been misbehaving.” He wondered what the reaction would be if he told her, And it wasn’t in the music room.

  Lady Stone snorted. “A bit of a flirt? You? Thorne, you were a flirt the day you climbed out of your cradle. Since then, you’ve gone all the way through rake, and you’re well on the path to libertine.” She looked across the ballroom and said blandly, “Her name is Anne Keighley.”

  How the devil did Lucinda know who he’d been looking at?

  His gaze returned to the dance floor, where his dark-haired debutante was dancing with—in the name of all that was holy—the most flagrant fortune hunter of the ton. Where the hell was her chaperone, if she was allowing her charge to have anything to do with Freddy Lassiter?

  Except… now that he could see her more clearly, Anne Keighley did not seem to be a debutante after all. She moved with too much grace for a girl in her first season, smiled with too much assurance, and flirted—and there was no question in his mind she was flirting with Freddy Lassiter—with too much ease.

  Even the dress that had looked so virginal in the dimness of the anteroom was nothing of the sort here; she must have chosen white not because it was proper but because it was so striking with her dark hair and vibrant coloring. Her figure—slender and small as she was—was definitely that of a woman, rather than a girl. And there was something in her eyes…

  Yes, she was definitely older than this Season’s crop of chicks.

  Belatedly, the name clicked in his mind. “Anne Keighley,” he said. “You mean Lady Keighley?”

  “So you know who she is.”

  “She made her come-out some years ago. Her father married her off to old Keighley, and nobody heard of her again ’til he died the year before last.”

  Lady Stone nodded. “And now that she’s finally out of black gloves, she has returned for another try.” Her gaze slid over him and back to the dancers. “At least that’s what they say.”

  I want you to ruin me, the dark beauty had said. That didn’t sound much like a marriage-minded widow to Thorne. Unless she was playing a very deep game indeed.

  “How old is she?”

  Lady Stone shrugged. “Three and twenty, perhaps.”

  “She didn’t seem it.” He didn’t realize until too late that he’d said it aloud.

  “And here I thought that to a rake like you, all women were alike in a darkened room, Thorne!”

  Thorne cursed his wayward tongue for letting that tidbit slip. Of course, Lucinda Stone wouldn’t have missed it. She might even have noticed little Anne returning to the ballroom.

  Still chortling, Lady Stone moved away to tend to her guests.

  Thorne leaned against the pillar and pretended not to notice as Anne Keighley swept by him in the arms of Freddy Lassiter and flashed him the most brilliant of smiles.

  ***

  Anne picked up one of the silver baby rattles that the jeweler’s assistant had l
aid out on a dark velvet cloth in front of her and shook it lightly, producing a gently musical tone. Just as she laid it down and picked up the other one, the clerk who was waiting on her bowed so deeply he was bent almost double. Obviously, she concluded, a customer far more important than mere Lady Keighley had just entered the shop.

  As Anne looked over her shoulder, Lord Hawthorne came to stand beside her. “Doing a little shopping for the heir?” he asked. “But I must be mistaken—you have no heir, I believe.”

  She gave him her most haughty look. “I fear we have not been introduced, sir.”

  He smiled, teeth flashing. “Don’t you recall? Lady Barnsley made us known to each other last night, Lady Keighley.”

  Oh, he was a quick one. And what else did you expect? “I have a lamentable memory, sir.”

  “I’m glad to know it’s not personal.” He picked up the rattle she’d already tested—and a frippery, too delicate thing it looked to her in his big, strong hand—and gave it a hard shake. The sound it made was harsh, discordant.

  Anne wanted to cover her ears. “Not that one,” she said to the jeweler’s assistant. “I’ll take the other for my friend’s baby son. And then you may serve Lord Hawthorne.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” Hawthorne said lightly. “I have no plans for the morning. No dragons to slay. No maidens to ravish.”

  “But then ravishing maidens has never been on your calendar,” she said softly. “Far too risky, that territory. Married ladies are far more your style.”

  He acknowledged the hit with a slight bow. “You’re out early for the morning after a ball.”

  “I’m generally an early riser. You might find it amusing, by the by, to know that Lady Barnsley offered to see me safely home last night. So kind of her to be concerned for my reputation when my sister-in-law took ill and my brother had to escort her home before the ball was over.”

  “Not that it would have been an inconvenience for her to convey you to your brother’s house, since Braxton lives just a step from Lady Stone’s.”

  So he knew where she lived as well. Lord Hawthorne was proving to be very well informed.

  He turned to the jeweler’s assistant. “I have a fancy for rubies today.”

  Anne couldn’t help herself. “Oh, surely not. That would be the wrong coloring altogether for… a lady with reddish hair.” A carrot-topped tart like Charlotte Barnsley, she wanted to say.

  “Because, of course, in my entire life I have known only the one lady,” he murmured. “Is that your maid waiting just outside the shop?”

  “Not mine, actually. My sister-in-law’s. Why? Is she craning her neck to see what’s going on?”

  He turned toward the door and lifted a hand lazily.

  A moment later, Maria appeared in the doorway. “Did you summon me, my lady?”

  Hawthorne held out a guinea. “Lady Keighley requires…” He paused, lifting an eyebrow at Anne.

  She knew she should simply stay quiet. Instead, she said, “A lace-edged handkerchief from the shop across the way.”

  “A dozen of them,” he corrected. “And she would like each one to be a different pattern. If you must search the length of Bond Street to find an appropriate variety, do so. Then return to her here.” When the maid was gone, he said softly, “You disappoint me. You couldn’t think of something more difficult to acquire than handkerchiefs?”

  “I also have a lamentable streak of practicality,” Anne said. “I can use a new handkerchief—or a dozen, for that matter. Most of mine still have black borders.”

  “Indeed. My apologies—and my condolences on your loss. If they’re in order.”

  She darted a look up at him. What did he mean, if condolences were in order? She looked away. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Keighley was a great deal older than you.” He glanced down at the ruby necklace the assistant had spread out before him and shook his head. “Not at all the thing. I prefer to look at the private stock, the jewels your master keeps in the back room. Would you care to assist me in my choice, Lady Keighley?” He waved a graceful hand toward a half-concealed door at the rear of the shop.

  His voice was very smooth, with not a hint that what he was offering was racy, even scandalous…

  Oh, don’t be a fool, Anne Keighley. He’s hardly going to ravish you in the back room of a jeweler’s shop. You offered him the perfect opportunity last night and he wasn’t in the least interested, so why would he—

  Exactly. Why would he have changed his mind? What was different this morning?

  Last night he’d thought she might be aiming to trap him into marriage. This morning, apparently, he was no longer concerned about that.

  Her heartbeat had speeded up a little. “Since you’ve sent off my maid and I must wait for her return,” she said demurely, “I may as well do all that’s possible to make some lady happy with her gift.” She stood up, dropping the silver rattle into her reticule. She could feel the blood pounding in her throat. “Send your account to me at Grosvenor Square, in care of Lord Braxton,” she told the jeweler’s assistant.

  He bowed and showed them into the private back room. It was just large enough for two wing-backed chairs and a small velvet-draped table on which stood a single ornament—an exquisite enameled butterfly, the wings edged with tiny garnets and topaz. Hawthorne escorted her to a chair and took the second one himself.

  “I think it’s time you explain yourself,” he said calmly.

  “The jeweler…”

  “…will not appear until he is summoned. You said last night that you wanted me to ruin you. What exactly did you mean, Lady Keighley?”

  This is what you wanted, she told herself. “I should think it is quite clear.”

  “The result perhaps, but not the reason.”

  She bit her lip, but she didn’t speak.

  “Very well,” he said. “I shall tell you what I know—or suspect—and you shall correct me where I’m wrong. You were married very young, not entirely by your own choice, to a man much older than yourself.”

  Not entirely by your own choice… that was one way of putting it. But there was no benefit in dwelling on history, so she settled for a nod.

  “He left you reasonably well off but without children. Now you’ve taken the sensible next move, returning to London and society—with a larger fortune and more freedom than when you were a debutante—to choose a second husband.”

  “No!”

  His expression remained impassive. “In that case, I deduce that in addition to being something of a hermit, Lord Keighley has left you with a distaste for men.”

  Anne wet her lips. “For husbands, at least.”

  “Your point is well taken. Yet you are not a wanton.”

  “Of course not. If I was, I’d hardly need to be ruined.”

  “That, you see, is where I seem to miss the point,” he said pensively.

  The silence lengthened. Any minute now, Maria might return. Why didn’t I ask for something much more complicated than handkerchiefs?

  “My husband was not only a hermit but a miser,” Anne said. “I find myself possessed of a reasonable fortune.”

  “A heartbreaking handicap, indeed.” There was the merest edge of irony in Hawthorne’s voice.

  “Yes,” she flared, “for a woman, it is. I control my money only until such time as I marry, when it will pass into the hands of my husband.”

  “It is the law. But the answer is simple. Choose carefully who you marry.”

  “And hope that I have chosen a man who will cherish me as well as my fortune? No, thank you.”

  “You have no wish for a family? You could insist that your money be settled on your children.”

  She kept her voice steady, but that took effort. “Whether I would like to have children is beside the point. At any rate, what I definitely do not wish for is a husband. But the choice, I fear, is not entirely up to me.”

  “Your brother insists?”

  “He has no power to compel me to wed. Howev
er, Braxton is something of a traditionalist. He frowns on the idea of me setting up my own establishment—yet he does not want me under his roof indefinitely.”

  “Ah. Perhaps Lady Braxton would prefer you to be… elsewhere?”

  Anne doubted that Madeleine would admit that. Nevertheless, it might well be true—and Madeleine had ways of getting what she wanted without ever saying anything directly. “Lady Braxton and I get along well enough for a visit of a few weeks. But I fear that months or years in the same household would lead to great discomfort for both of us.”

  “It is a rare house indeed that can hold two ladies in comfort.”

  Anne couldn’t help but wonder how he could possibly know. “I have been back in London just a week, and already my brother has given his permission to three different men to court me.”

  “And his approval gives credence to the idea that you are seeking a husband,” Thorne mused. “However, I find it hard to believe you’ve done nothing yourself to encourage them. You were flirting with Freddy Lassiter last night, which is hardly the way to stifle his interest.”

  “I was not flirting… I was dancing. I could hardly refuse him a waltz. He told me he’d call on me this morning, so I assume he has also found favor in my brother’s eyes. That makes four.”

  “Which leads one to wonder about Braxton’s judgment, if he thinks the Honorable Freddy is a good match. He’s a fortune hunter… but then, you said, you have a fortune.”

  “I think my brother gives more weight to the fact that the gentlemen in question are young and lively,” Anne said thoughtfully.

  “As Keighley certainly was not. I gather you slipped away this morning rather than listen to Freddy’s proposal?”

  “I pretended not to have heard him say he would come to call,” Anne admitted. “At any rate, Freddy Lassiter’s not the worst of them.”

  “We are veering from the point, Lady Keighley.”

  “I choose not to marry, but my brother refuses to believe that I am quite serious. Since he encourages men to think that they may find favor with me, I have no choice but to make it clear to the ton that I have no intention of marrying again.”