Margaret McPhee – Temptation In Regency Society: Unmasking the Duke's Mistress (страница 13)

Arabella’s words rang through his head. He was a thousand times the man you are! … A harlot’s lie. It is what men want to hear, is it not? And he realised there had been a part of him that had thought that she would have welcomed him, wanted him. That she would have told him that what happened in the past was all a mistake, that she had loved him all along.

He shook his head with disgust at his own absurdity. Nothing had changed. It never would. She still had the power to hurt him … and was wielding it with deliberation.

He had made this arrangement; he would not break it and see her thrown back down into the gutter. But for Dominic there could be no more visits to Curzon Street.

The decision made, Dominic stood back to watch the new day dawn over London.

In the dining room that morning Arabella was watching Archie eating his breakfast. After seeing him brought almost to the point of starvation she could not help but worry whether that last week in Flower and Dean Street had left its mark upon him. But looking at him now, wolfing down his buttered eggs and sausages and excitedly telling his story, she felt a sense of relief at the resilience of children. She smoothed down his hair and concentrated on listening to how he was going to have a whole stable of horses when he was a grown-up man. But she knew Mrs Tatton’s questions would not be deferred for long. Arabella could see from the corner of her eye the way her mother was watching her with concern written all over her face.

She tried to smile and act as if everything was just the same as it had been yesterday, but her heart was filled with humiliation and confusion and embarrassment over what had happened last night. She did not understand what she had done wrong. And she was relieved and angry and ashamed all at once.

Archie helped himself to another two sausages and then climbed down from the table and ran off to play a game of horses.

‘Archie, come back. We do not leave the table until we have finished eating,’ she called after him.

‘Oh, leave him be, Arabella. He will do no harm and has been so well behaved of late despite all of our troubles,’ said Mrs Tatton.

‘You are right, of course,’ Arabella said. ‘It has not been easy for him.’ The weight of guilt was heavy. She doubted that the memory of those awful last days when he had gone hungry would ever leave her.

‘Nor for any of us,’ answered her mother. ‘Now I know it is not my place to ask and that events of the bedchamber between a man and a woman are best kept that way, but …’ Mrs Tatton’s brow furrowed with concern. ‘I do not think that matters went so well for you last night.’

‘Those matters were fine,’ Arabella said quickly and felt her cheeks flush at the memory of Dominic’s rejection. She was his mistress. She was supposed to bed him, to let him take his pleasure. And she had been prepared to do just that, however much she resented it. What she had not been prepared for was that he would tease a response from her body and then just walk away.

‘Do not lie to me, girl. I have eyes to see and ears to hear. And I see your face is powder pale this morning and your eyes swollen and red as if you have spent the night weeping. And I heard him leaving the house before midnight.’

‘My eyes are a little irritated this morning, nothing more. And D—’ She stopped Dominic’s name on her tongue before it could escape. ‘And, yes, the gentleman had to leave early. There were others matters to which he had to attend.’

‘At midnight?’ her mother snorted. ‘He was barely here.’

‘If his visits are short, does it not suit us all the better?’

‘Some men can be inconsiderate in their haste to … to satisfy their own …’ Her mother’s cheeks blushed scarlet and she could not finish her words.

‘No,’ Arabella said hastily. ‘It was not like that.’

The sight of him. The scent of him. His fingers slowly tracing a line all the way along her collar bone, before meandering down to tease her nipples. The burn of her skin, the rush of her blood …

She winced with the shame of it.

‘Tell me the truth, Arabella.’ Mrs Tatton reached over and placed her hand on Arabella’s.

Her cheeks warmed, and she felt the gall of bitterness in her throat. ‘If you knew the truth, Mama, you would not believe it,’ she murmured.

‘Did he use you ill?’ Her mother’s face paled, the flash of fear in her eyes making Arabella feel a brute. She was supposed to be reassuring her mother, not worrying her all the more.

‘He did nothing, Mama.’ Even though she had offered herself to him like the harlot she had become. She was so angry at herself … and at him.

She was relieved that he had not taken her, so why did she feel so humiliated? It was a confusing hurtful mess.

‘Do not lie to me now, Arabella. If he has hurt you … Nothing is worth that. Better that we beg upon the streets than—’

She took her mother’s hand in her own and stroked the fragile veined skin. ‘Mama, he was gentle and demanded nothing of me. I wept only for what I am become.’

‘Oh, Arabella, we should leave this house.’ Arabella felt her mother’s hands twist within her own.

‘And return to Flower and Dean Street?’ Arabella raised her brows.

‘I could look for work. Between the two of us we could find a way.’

And the work would kill her mother. Arabella knew there was no other way. She shook her head. ‘It is too late, Mama.’

What was done, was done. She was a fallen woman. Besides, the past had caught up with Arabella. I cannot, his words seemed to whisper through the room and she thought of the haunted expression in his eyes.

‘Mama, we are staying here. I was foolish last night, that is all. Tonight will be different.’ She hoped. ‘You have nothing to worry over except to count the money and the days until we can return to the country.’

‘If you are sure about this, Arabella?’

‘I am quite certain.’

Her mother did not look happy, but she nodded and went back to eating her breakfast.

It was barely an hour later when the letter arrived. Again, written in Dominic’s familiar bold handwriting. Arabella’s heart began to trip as she broke the sealing wax and read the bold penned words within.

‘Well?’ Her mother glanced up from the chair on which she was sitting. The sunshine bathed the whole of the drawing room in its warm pale golden light.

‘He has arranged for a dressmaker to call tomorrow afternoon.’ Arabella folded the letter and slipped it into the pocket of her dress so that her mother would not see the crest embossed both upon the paper and impressed within the seal.

‘It is only to be expected,’ Mrs Tatton said and went back to pouring the tea.

‘I suppose you are right,’ Arabella murmured, and a vision of the scandalous silk black dress swam in her mind. She glanced down at her own grey gown and knew she would rather wear this every single day, old and shabby as it was, than anything Dominic would buy for her.

‘Archie and I will make ourselves scarce.’

Arabella nodded and glanced at her son, feeling a tug of guilt and worry. Hiding them away at night was not so very bad, for both her mother and son slept early. And although the room was near to the attic it was warm and cosy and nicely furnished, and better in every way than the one they had left in Flower and Dean Street. But to force them to stay quiet and hidden during the day while Dominic sat downstairs and chose a wardrobe of fast, provocative clothes in which to dress her sparked an angry resentment in Arabella.

Something of her feelings must have shown in her face for Mrs Tatton said, ‘It is only for one day, Arabella, and it will do us no harm. And as for the rest … well, the clothes are the least of it.’

There was no sign of Dominic by two o’clock the next day when the dressmaker called. Arabella smoothed her skirts for the umpteenth time and forced herself to at least pretend to be attending to her needlework, although she had the sudden thought, just as she heard the knock at the door, that perhaps mistresses did not spend their time in needlework. It was the first time that anyone would be seeing her as Dominic’s mistress and Arabella composed her face to conceal her humiliation.

When Gemmell showed the woman into the drawing room, Arabella’s heart sank to meet her shoes. Of all the dressmakers in London that Dominic could have chosen …

And she remembered those final dark days that had led her to Mrs Silver’s House of Rainbow Pleasures. It should not matter that it was Madame Boisseron waiting in the drawing room, for in her desperation Arabella had knocked on the door of every dressmaker, mantua maker and milliner, every corsetry house, tailor and seamstress, seeking work that was not to be found. Any one of London’s dressmakers coming here today would have recognised her. But somehow, the fact that it was the woman in whose shop she had met Mrs Silver just seemed to add to the humiliation for Arabella.

But if Madame Boisseron recognised Arabella the dressmaker was wise enough to make no sign of it. Arabella took a deep breath, swallowed down her embarrassment and knew that she had no choice but to deal with the situation as best she could.