Mistress in the Regency Ballroom: The Rake's Unconventional Mistress / Marrying the Mistress

The articulate young Welshman came readily to her rescue. ‘If Miss Boyce approves, then so do I, sir. We don’t necessarily read these stories out loud, as we do with Shakespeare, but—’

But the company had already dissolved into laughter at the idea of anyone reading The Infidel out loud, and Letitia’s pink cheeks went unnoticed except by Mr Waverley and Lord Rayne who, sitting five places away from her, was finding it difficult to give his undivided attention to Mrs Quayle on one side and Miss Strachan on the other.

As they left the table, he caught up with Letitia. ‘Allow me to thank you, Miss Boyce, for including me in your party. That was a memorable meal.’

She had had little choice in the matter of his inclusion, but saw no advantage in saying so. ‘Thank you, Lord Rayne. It’s given you the opportunity to see how I’ve changed things since you last saw the inside of the house.’

‘I never saw the interior until now.’

‘Oh? You would have bought it unseen?’

‘My agent saw it. He recommended it to me, that’s all.’

‘I see. I had heard…’She must not tell him what she’d heard.

‘Otherwise?’ Deliberately, he looked across the room to the group where Lady Dorna stood talking. ‘My sister means well,’ he said, in a low voice, ‘but she inhabits a delightful world where realities and fancies mix rather freely. None of us would have her any different, but it sometimes leaves us with some explaining to do. Would you like me to explain anything to you, Miss Boyce?’

‘No, I thank you. There is room for all of us. But whatever I heard about you wanting my house has completely escaped me. It’s of no consequence.’

‘None at all. I could never have made it look as handsome as it does now.’ His eyes did not follow his compliment, but took a route over her piled-up silvery braids, her graceful neck adorned with a single rope of pearls, her beautiful shoulders and bosom framed by pale grey silk piped and latticed with silver satin.

‘No, a house generally does better with one mistress, my lord, rather than a succession of them. Take my tedious, predictable twin sisters, for instance. Even they might be at odds about some details. By the way,’ she whispered, as if about to disclose a confidence, ‘the blue-stocking elder sister is not interested, despite what you believe. I cannot think how you came by that notion, my lord, unless you share the same kind of problem with reality as Lady Dorna. Could it be that, I wonder?’

Lazily scanning, his eyes came to rest on hers, slowly revealing an understanding of where her phrases originated. They widened, then smiled, then grew serious again as she reached the end of her disclosure. ‘So,’ he said, quietly, ‘the ears make up for the eyes, do they? No use for me to apologise, I suppose?’

‘No use at all, my lord. It merely confirms what I knew already.’

‘That’s the pity of it, Miss Boyce. It only confirms what you thought you knew already. But we’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we? Both of us have preconceived ideas about the other. You believe I am shallow. You think I believe you to be—’

‘A challenge is what you said. You fancy a challenge. Forget it, my lord. You could never hold my interest. My sisters, however…’

‘Whom we shall leave out of it, if you please.’

‘They’d not be pleased to hear you say that.’

‘Then they’d better not hear it, had they? As I was saying, you appear to believe I cannot be serious about a woman, and that what you overheard confirms it, and that I could only be interested in you for the novelty value.’

‘I didn’t imagine that, my lord. I heard it.’

‘I was being uncivil, on purpose. It was not meant—’

‘Oh, spare me!’ she snapped. ‘I’m so looking forward to hearing some good acting, aren’t you? See,’ she said, turning, ‘the coats and capes are being brought in. Mr Waverley…Bart…where are you? If you will take three of the ladies in with you, and perhaps Lord and Lady Elyot will take…’ She bustled away, managing and marshalling four people into each of the three coaches until, quite by accident, she was the only woman left with one male guest. ‘Lord…er…Rayne?’ she whispered. ‘Oh!’

Leaning against the hall table with feet wide apart, he was quietly laughing. ‘Managed yourself into a corner, Mother Hen?’ he said. ‘Come on, then. You and I are going to walk it. It’s not far.’

‘I know how far it is,’ she growled. ‘It’s not that.’

He did not move. ‘You want me to carry you there?’

‘Tch!’ She sighed, wondering how she could possibly have done something as foolish as this. She would rather have walked with Mr Chatterton in his high-heeled shoes than with Rayne, whose arrogance both excited and annoyed her.

The footman bowed and withdrew, leaving them alone in the hall with a mountain of misunderstandings to keep them apart.

He waited, then reached her in two strides, backing her into the hard edge of the opposite table. She gripped it, leaning away from him, seeing for the first time the crisp detail of his neckcloth, the white waistcoat and its silver buttons, undone at the top. Again, she breathed the faint aroma given off by his warm skin, but now there was to be no making of mental notes for her writing when he was so frighteningly close, no time to express how she was affected, or the sensation of her heart thudding into her throat.

He placed a large knuckle beneath her chin, lifting it. ‘Yes, my beauty, I know. This is not what you planned, is it?’

‘Don’t call me that! I’m not your beauty, nor am I—’

‘And you can glare at me all you want, but this evening you will do as I say without argument and without biting my hand off. Do you hear me?’

‘I shall—’

‘Do you hear me? Without argument. Just for once, if you please.’

She nodded, looking at his mouth, then at the faint bluish shadow around his jaw, then back to his eyes that had noted every detour. his thighs pressed against hers, and she understood that, suddenly, he was struggling to suppress an urge to do what he had done once before. She must prevent it. ‘Let me go,’ she whispered.

He did not move. ‘Where are your spectacles? Have you another pair? Do you have them with you?’

‘In my reticule. Let me go, please.’

‘You will take my arm,’ he commanded, ‘and you will be civil.’

‘Yes, I will be civil.’

‘I have your word on it?’

‘Yes…now please…let me go.’ She took hold of his wrist, expecting it to move but, when she looked again at his eyes to find the cause of his delay, she saw how his gaze rested upon the staircase as if to measure its length. Panic stole upwards, fluttering inside her bodice. Her fingers tightened over the soft fabric of his coat-cuff. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t…please don’t.’She saw the reflection of the two wall-lamps in his eyes, heavy-lidded with desire.

‘I could,’ he said, ‘but I suppose they will not delay the performance of Shakespeare for us, so we’d better go. Come, my beauty, adjust your shawl. There, now take my arm, and try to remember what you have agreed.’

Speechless and shaken, she did as she was told. Arm in arm they went out into the cool evening, pulling the heavy door closed behind them.

Earlier that afternoon she had formed a clear plan of where everyone would sit, herself being nowhere near Lord Rayne. However, arriving at the theatre only a few minutes later, Letitia found her plans already displaced by the earlier arrival of the day girls, their parents and friends. Although Miss Sapphire Melborough clearly hoped that Lord Rayne would join her parents in their box, he merely bowed politely, held a few words of conversation with her mother, then rejoined Letitia, taking the two seats left over after the others had taken theirs. It was not at all what Letitia had intended, and Rayne knew it as he quelled her budding protest with a stern glance, positioning her chair next to his at the back of the box and almost herding her into it with one uncompromising word. ‘There,’ he said.

She delayed for as long as she dared but, in the end, there was nothing for it but to accept the situation when the musicians in the pit ceased playing and the curtain glided upwards. The scene of merchants and their clients against a background of Venetian waterways would normally have riveted her attention. But this time she was sitting close to Lord Rayne against the high back of the box with a partition on one side of her, and her usually obedient concentration was distracted by the sensation that, for all her determination to deny him any sign of encouragement, he had won that round with ease.

He had another way of putting it, in a whisper, when she turned slightly to glance at him. Catching her angry expression, his unsmiling eyes made his advice all the more telling. ‘Stop fighting me, my beauty. I intend to win.’

Turning her attention to her reticule, she drew out a pair of pocket spectacles that swung inside a mother-of-pearl cover, holding them to her eyes as if his words meant nothing. But the spectacles trembled, and she knew he had seen before she transferred them to her other hand.

That evening at Richmond’s Theatre Royal was to be remembered for many reasons, the chief of which was the way in which Lord Rayne attended to her needs as they had not been since her father died, not even by Mr Waverley. Independent to a fault, she had intended to take charge of the event, putting herself last, as usual, in spite of there being enough adults to watch over the three boarders. But if she had thought they would prefer her to the others, she was wrong. They did not need her, and she had no other role to play except to stay by Rayne’s side, where he wanted her.

‘Miss Melborough is hoping you will visit her,’ she said.

‘Then she will be disappointed. This evening, Miss Boyce, I am with no one but you, and you will not get rid of me.’

‘Hasn’t this gone on long enough, my lord?’ she said, demurely, opening and closing her spectacle-cover. ‘You’ve made your point, I think. You’ve had your fun and enjoyed the stares. But these girls are my pupils, and you place me in a very awkward position by paying me this attention one evening and then, as you are sure to do, paying the same kind of attention to someone else next time they see you. They all know you and my sisters are seen in each other’s company. They know that Sapphire’s parents are keen on an alliance. I am not unused to being talked about in one way or another, but this evening will not be easy for me to live down, my lord. Perhaps you think you’re doing me some kind of favour, but I assure you, you’re not. Surely you can see that?’