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

Her cheeks were still very pink when Mr Dimmock joined her to discuss some of the paintings with her and found, to his dismay, that she had so far seen very few of them.

Chapter Six

Leaving William Lake’s lending-library in Leadenhall Street, London, Lord Seton Rayne tossed a pile of books on to the seat of his curricle and climbed up beside them, having accomplished what he had promised to do for his mother, the Marchioness of Sheen, who had been unable to find extra copies for her friends anywhere. He was about to call to his tiger to loose the horses’ heads when he noticed the tall hurrying figure of the Honourable Bart Waverley leap down the steps of the library and dash across to the other side of the street carrying a leather briefcase under his arm. This was singular, Rayne thought, because there had been no sign of Bart inside the library.

Watching the striding figure disappear round the corner, he then looked up at the windows above the library where the gold-printed words read, Mercury Press, Est. 1790. Publisher W. Lake, Esq. Did Bart know William Lake personally? Was there some business between them? Not being one to poke his nose into other people’s affairs, Rayne let the matter rest beside a strange feeling that a connection was escaping him.

Later that afternoon, he made a detour through the winding corridors of Hampton Court Palace on his way from the barrack block and stables to his own apartments bordering the Outer Green Court, his home during weekdays. Pausing for a moment outside the dingy little room where he and Miss Letitia Boyce had exchanged kisses—oh, yes, she had exchanged kisses, he was convinced of that—he smiled and closed the door, continuing his walk round to the gardens on the sunny south side of the palace’s grace-and-favour apartments.

Residents and their elderly guests strolled along the overgrown pathways and sat on benches in the shade, snoozing, reading, or watching the boats on the distant river. One erect resident, lace-draped, white-haired and bespectacled, held a book up high as if she were singing from it. She looked up as Rayne approached, lowering the book with a smile. ‘Lord Rayne,’ she said. ‘Finished for the day?’

‘I have indeed, Lady Waverley,’ he said with a bow. ‘And you?’

Her smile softened as she removed her eyeglasses. She was still a lovely woman, arched brows, cheekbones firmly covered. ‘No, not me,’ she said. ‘I have some way to go yet.’ She indicated the book and the pages yet to be read. ‘It’s the newest one Bart lent me. I’ve been so looking forward to it, you know. Of course, he must be allowed to read it first, dear boy. Come and sit with me a while.’ She drew in a heap of soft shawl and lace, moving up to make room for him.

Rayne sat, removed his helmet, and ran a hand through his hair.

‘Are you not supposed to powder your hair?’ she said, watching the gesture. ‘I thought the Prince’s Own had to wear powder and a pigtail.’

‘We do on parade, my lady. Makes too much mess for everyday wear.’ He looked at the book on her lap. ‘Did you say Bart lent it to you? My lady mother is on Hatchett’s subscription list, but she wants extra copies to give to her friends. They’re very scarce. Where does Bart get his from?’

‘From Lake the publisher. He’s almost sold out of the first edition, apparently, but we’ve known him for years.’

‘Ah! That explains it.’

‘Explains what?’

‘Why I saw Bart leaving the Mercury Press this morning.’

‘Oh, did you? Well, he brought me this yesterday.’ She tapped the book. ‘It’s his own copy, given him by the author. Perhaps he was there on some business for her.’

‘He knows the author? So it is a woman, then?’

‘Oh, yes, he knows her well. He meets Lake on her behalf. A young lady cannot go there on her own, can she? Bart’s done all her business transactions with Lake from the very first book. He gets to read it, then he passes it on to me. Am I not fortunate? I doubt I could wait any longer.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Oh, I’ve pestered him for ages to hurry up and—’

‘No, I meant about the author being a young lady. Does she live in Richmond, near Bart?’

‘It may be that she does, but I’m not too familiar with who lives there, so I don’t really know, and he refuses to tell me any more except that she’s earning quite an income from these.’ Again, she tapped Volume One, leather-bound and gold-tooled. ‘Mind you,’ she continued, ‘I have no doubt that Lake is doing very nicely out of it. He’s unlikely to be offering her the kind of deal he’d offer a man, even if she is more popular.’

‘But isn’t that why the author has Bart to act for her?’

She smiled her indulgent, motherly smile. ‘Of course. But you know what dear Bart’s like, don’t you? He was never the forceful kind, was he?’

‘No, my lady.’

The sounds of the late afternoon passed them by with a shower of dandelion clocks, as they thought about Mr Waverley’s many fine qualities, of which forcefulness was not one. ‘Will he ever marry, do you think?’ said Rayne, gently.

The shake of Lady Waverley’s head would easily have been missed, had Rayne not been watching for it. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Shouldn’t think so, Seton. Marriage is not for Bart’s kind, is it?’

‘It’s not unknown, my lady.’

‘But it rarely works. Best to stay single. He’s happy enough.’

‘He’d make a wonderful father.’

Lady Waverley took that as the compliment it was meant to be, and said no more on the delicate subject. Rayne, however, returned to the young lady author. ‘A Lady of Quality, I believe she calls herself,’ he said, smoothing a hand over his helmet’s glossy fur. ‘So I suppose I must not ask if you know the identity of this mysterious wealthy young woman.’

‘Only Bart himself knows that, and he’d not dream of breaking a confidence, not even to his mother. Mr Lake knows her only as a certain Miss Lydia Barlowe, but that must be a nom de plume. No lady of quality ever had such a common name.’

Rayne bellowed with laughter. ‘Lady Waverley, I do believe you’re a snob,’ he teased.

She agreed, smiling at the notion. ‘Yes, dear, I believe I am. It’s one of the few allowances left to a woman of my age. That, and being able to sit and talk to a man like you, alone, without being suspected of flirting.’

‘And if I were not so afraid of being called out by your son, I would indulge in some serious flirting with you, my lady.’

The smiling face tipped towards him. ‘Does Bart go in for…for calling men out?’

‘Duelling? Not by choice, I don’t suppose. But if you’re asking if he’s well enough equipped to protect himself, then, yes, he certainly is. He could do some damage with pistol, rapier and gloves, too. And the young lady writer, whoever she is, has chosen an excellent business partner, with Bart’s head for accounts.’

‘It’s pity he won’t be offering for her. Even if she is a commoner.’

Rayne smiled, which Lady Waverley took for sympathy, but which was, in fact, nothing of the sort. Lydia Barlowe. L.B. How careless of her, he thought. How endearingly, wonderfully careless.

Letitia’s proposal to visit Strawberry Hill House at Twickenham, just across the river from Richmond, had an ulterior motive that no one but Mr Waverley could be expected to guess, for it was where Mr Horace Walpole had written, in 1764, his famous Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. Others, including Letitia, were to follow this trend, literally, while readers made pilgrimages to the amazing house-cum-castle he had built to satisfy his every Gothic whim. No serious romantic novelist could afford to miss such a place with its towers and turrets, chapel, cloisters and chambers littered with historic curios.

The great man himself, son of a Prime Minister, had died seventeen years ago and now it was possible for visitors to look round by arrangement with the housekeeper, a favour that Letitia had gone to some trouble to secure for her party of pupils, tutors and chaperons. She was not inclined to hurry through the rooms, having made it so far with notebook and pencil, sketching and scribbling as they were shown into the long gallery, the library, past carved screens, mock-tombs and suits of medieval armour, gloomy portraits and up winding spooky staircases.

Miss Sapphire Melborough, however, having other things on her mind, had soon seen enough of Strawberry Hill and was incautious enough to enquire of Mrs Quayle, in an undertone bordering on despair, how much longer they might be stuck here. She had asked the wrong person, for Mrs Quayle was thoroughly enjoying herself despite the appropriate melancholic expression. She passed on the plaintive query to Letitia, which Sapphire had neither wanted nor expected her to do.

‘Why? Who wants to know?’ said Letitia.

‘Miss Sapphire. She’s had enough.’

‘If it’s her ankle, she can rest on the bench over there and wait.’

‘I don’t think it’s her ankle, Letitia.’

Beckoning to her pupil, Letitia noted the pouting rosebud mouth. ‘What is it, Sapphire? We’re only halfway round. There’s much more to see.’

‘But I…well, you see…’ Pulling in her bottom lip, she nibbled at it.

‘See what?Are you unwell? Do you wish Mrs Quayle to…?’

‘No, Miss Boyce, only that I expected to be home by now because Lord Rayne is to bring my new horse and give me my first lesson on it. I’m afraid I shall miss it if I stay here much longer.’