Chapter Eighteen

because I was a mistress didn’t mean I had

to endure rudeness.

—Anonymous,Memoirs of a Mistress

Christabel could tell from Byrne’s expression that he hadn’t meant to say that. His dismay was almost comical. But then his eyes grew steely. “You’re coming with me to Bath. Now.”

She was tempted to refuse: At last she had a chance to search for the letters without him around. But getting into Lord Stokely’s room could prove tricky, and if the baron had a safe there, she couldn’t break into that. No matter what Byrne said, he probably knew exactly how to pick locks. So a trip to Bath would give her the chance to talk him into helping her do just that. All right, so she was making excuses—the truth was, she wanted to go with him because she wanted to see his estate, wanted to get a glimpse of the real Byrne that no one else had.

“I’ll have to take Rosa,” she said.

“If you’re worried about your reputation you’d be better off leaving her here, since we’ll have to stay at my estate overnight. She can make the others think you never left. We’ll only be gone one night, so you don’t need a bag. If you meet me down the road, Rosa can tell anyone who asks that the incident with Lady Jenner left you feeling unwell. Then not even other servants will be able to enter your room to determine if you’re there.”

He had a point. And though she suspected that her reputation was already damaged beyond repair, it couldn’t hurt to keep this trip a secret. “All right.”

“I leave within the half hour. I’ll meet you down by those hedges on the far lawn. They’ll shield you from view of the house.”

Then he was gone. She barely had time to stuff a few essentials into one of her old large reticules and instruct Rosa on what she should tell people, before it was time to meet Byrne. Only after they were well away from Stokely’s estate, did she relax. “Did you tell Lord Stokely you were leaving?”

Byrne nodded. “The bastard seemed inordinately pleased. He probably thinks he’ll get the chance to seduce you, now that I’m gone.”

“I don’t understand his interest in me—though we might be able to use it.”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv A scowl knit his brow. “How so?”

“Well, you said you don’t know how to pick locks.” She smiled innocently. “If we can’t figure out any other way to get into Lord Stokely’s bedchamber, then I can always cozy up to him so that he brings me—”

“No,” he said tersely. “You will not do any such thing.”

“I’m not saying I would share his bed; just that I’d let him have a kiss and flirt a little until he invites me there.”

Byrne’s face was stormy. “Once there, you’d end up in his bed whether you wanted to be or not.”

Christabel stiffened. “Don’t you trust me not to allow a man to seduce me?”

“I’m not talking about seduction, lass. I’m talking about force. He’d call you a tease and do as he wished, feeling justified that any woman who came to his bedchamber meant to share his bed, no matter what she said. And no one would fault him for it, either.”

“I can handle myself with him, and you can always stand outside and wait for me to call out if I’m in trouble—”

“No, it’s too dangerous. I won’t let you whore for those letters.”

There was that word again. “Aren’t I doing that already?” she asked quietly. A deadly stillness came over him. “Are you saying you shared my bed only to gain my help?”

“Of course not. But the fact remains that thanks to this scheme, I began sharing your bed.”

A curse erupted from him. “You are not a whore, Christabel.”

“What am I then?”

“My mistress.”

Like all the others. All the many others.Her throat grew painfully tight. “I see little difference between a whore and a mistress.” Though the past two days with him had been mostly heaven, the reality of her position had plagued her conscience. “You’re funding my part in these card games. You bought my gowns. Isn’t a whore someone who exchanges her favors for financial gain?”

Anger tightened his features. “I’ll grant you that a mistress does that, too. But there’s a difference.”

“Oh?” She trod dangerous ground—his mother had played that role for Prinny, after all. But she had to make him understand. “Aside from the fact that a whore has encounters with several customers and a mistress has several encounters with one, I’m not sure I see the difference.”

The word “customer” made him flinch. “Then you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, or you’dknow the difference.” He leaned forward. “I spent my entire boyhood around whores. You’ve never had a man beat you until you were blue. Or break your arm with impunity because he knew nothing would be done Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv about it. You’ve never had to go out hunting for men just to gain the blunt to purchase a few hours sleep in a flea-ridden bed with three other women huddled together because there’s no heat. You’ve never had to watch while a gin-soaked workman in the depths of despair slits his own throat, which, by the way, is the method of choice for killing oneself in Drury Lane—”

“Byrne, enough.” Her heart ached at the thought that he’d seen such things probably before he was old enough even to understand them.

He breathed heavily, his eyes almost feral. Slowly, he calmed himself. After a few short breaths, he said,

“The point is, you’re not remotely a whore.”

She hesitated. Should she continue to press him when he was so upset? She had to; he still didn’t understand. “You seem to be saying that the difference between a whore and a mistress is one of station. Granted, the life of women in Drury Lane is pitiable, but that doesn’t change the fact that both mistresses and whores take money in exchange for their favors.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “You’re forgetting that one has a choice, and the other doesn’t.”

She thrust out her chin. “In what way does a mistress have a choice?”

“She can refuse to share her lover’s bed, for one thing.”

“She won’t last long as a mistress if she does that often,” Christabel said dryly. “And a whore can choose not to take a customer if she pleases.”

“Damn it, you are not a whore!” he cried, clenching his fists in his lap. “Fine, you don’t believe me? I’ll show you the difference.” Jerking down the window shades, he settled back against his seat, his eyes icily bleak. “Unbutton your gown.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“You’re my whore, remember? I bought and paid for you. So unbutton your gown. Now!”

Her eyes narrowed, but her pride wouldn’t let her back down and let him win the argument. “Fine.” She did as he bade. “Anything else, sir?” she said, the words deliberately sarcastic. His face was a rigid mask. “Show me your bubs.”

Though the crude word brought her up short, it had another entirely unexpected effect. It aroused her. She couldn’t imagine why, unless it was because it reminded her of stripping for him when they’d played Whist for the Wicked.

So although it took her some effort to get her gown and chemise unfastened and lowered to her short corset without any help from him, she managed it. And she gained a measure of satisfaction from his surprised look that said he really hadn’t expected her to comply.

“Now touch yourself,” he said hoarsely.

“I beg your pardon?”

The chill had left his eyes, replaced by a heat that sent the blood roaring through her veins. “Caress your Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv breasts. Your nipples. So I can watch. That’s what I like. To watch.”

Fire leaped up through her, blooming into a blush in her cheeks. But she couldn’t help noticing he hadn’t called them “bubs” again. “All right,” she said, her voice coming out sultry rather than merely compliant. Gavin couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Moment by moment he was losing control of the lesson he’d meant to teach her, but how could he have known the bloody wench would take to this so well? Her eyes heavy-lidded, she rubbed first one breast, then the other, until the nipples tightened into tempting peaks. Until he had to forcibly suppress the urge to leap across the carriage and suck her lush breasts until she begged him for more.

He wouldn’t do it, damn it! He wouldn’t let her bloody stubbornness turn this into a seduction. He meant to prove to her once and for all that what they had wasn’t the same as the sordid association between a whore and her customer.

Unfastening his trousers and drawers, he shoved them down just enough to free his rampant erection.

“Now,” he ground out, “suck my cock.” Somehow he managed to add in a choked tone, “Whore.”

That certainly had the desired effect. She blanched, her lower lip trembling. “I don’t…understand.”

“What’s there to understand? You take my cock in your mouth, and you suck it until I find release. The same way I find release inside your…honeypot.” He couldn’t bring himself to use the crude word for that with her. He just couldn’t. “Get down on your knees and suck my cock. That’s one of the ‘favors’ I paid for, remember?”

For a moment, he was sure she’d balk. Even the most adventurous of his mistresses rarely performed that service for him, so he knew for damned sure Christabel would never do it. Even after she fell to her knees on the floor between them, he thought a jolt of the carriage had thrown her there. But he should have known better—apparently Colonel Christabel would do almost anything to keep him from winning an argument.

He stared in unmitigated shock as she leaned forward and took the crown of his cock in her mouth. Bloody, bloody hell.

He caught her head in his hands, meaning to drag it away, but instinct made him urge it closer, until she’d enfolded most of him in her hot mouth. God, it felt so good. But when she began to suck, he knew he was in trouble, for it was all he could do not to explode right then and there inside her mouth.

“Enough,” he growled, pulling her head back until his cock slipped free of her mouth. “You can’t do this.”

“Why not?” She gazed up at him with a mocking smile. Then abruptly it faded. “Oh, I’m doing it wrong.”

Belatedly, he remembered what she’d said about her husband, about how she thought she hadn’t pleased him in bed. “If you do it any more right, you’ll pleasure me out of my mind, lass. That’s not the point.”

“Oh?” The mocking gleam had returned to her eyes. “Then what is the point? I’m only doing what you paid for me to—”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv He hauled the determined wench up onto his lap. “You arenot a whore.” He seized her mouth to blot out the words she was sure to throw at him now that she thought she’d won this argument. Not that she had.Isn’t a whore someone who exchanges her favors for financial gain? Damn her! He kissed her wildly, determined to erase from her mind the notion that she was his paid whore. She wasn’t.

Then what am I?

He’d show her what she was. Even if he wasn’t sure of it himself. She tore her mouth from his. “Byrne—”

“Shh,” he murmured, scattering kisses over her impossibly soft skin as he slipped his hand up under her skirts. “Let me make love to you, darling.”

“No, it’s my turn.” Brushing his hands aside, she began to work loose his cravat. “I understand that a woman can make love to a man as easily as he can make love to her.”

He drew back to stare at her in surprise. “And where did you hear that?”

“From your other mistresses.” She removed his coat, then unbuttoned his waistcoat. “We had a very interesting conversation about how to please a man.”

He groaned. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

Mischief filled her face. “Why not?” She took her time about undoing his shirt, which put him even more on his guard.

“Because given your military bent, you’re likely to use such knowledge to bring me to my knees.”

“You mean the way you brought me to my knees just now?” She tugged his shirt off over his head. Then she ran one finger down the center of his chest to his belly and lower. But when she dragged her forefinger along the length of his cock only to tease the tip, he caught her hand, and growled, “Don’t even think it, my sweet.”

“What?” she said innocently.

“You are not going to pay me back for what I did earlier by tormenting me for hours with your devilish little hand. I want to be inside you. Now.”

“Certainly, sir,” she said, with that falsely compliant tone of before. “Anything to please the customer.”

“Christabel—” he began in a warning tone.

“You didn’t bring your French letters, did you?”

Damn. He hadn’t. “Forget my French letters.” He shifted her on his lap so he could divest her of her Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv gown, then went to work on her corset laces.

“Ah, but do we dare?” she taunted him. “According to Lady Jenner, you never do without them, because you see your mistresses as ‘whor—”

“To hell with Lady Jenner.” He finished with her corset and practically ripped it off her. “And if you use the wordwhore in connection with yourself one more time, I swear I’ll stop the carriage and make you walk to Bath.”

She laughed. “No, you won’t.” She reached down to fondle his arousal. “Because then you couldn’t satisfythis .” When he merely glared at her, her smile faded. She kissed his mouth until some of the tension left him, then drew back, eyes solemn. “Why does it bother you so to think of me as a whore?”

“Because you’re not one. And because I don’t like your feeling that you are.”

She stayed his hand as he reached to shove off her chemise. “You once told me you didn’t care about the feelings of your mistresses.”

“I don’t,” he said hoarsely. “But I damned well care about yours.” God, she really was turning him into a blithering, besotted idiot. And at the moment, he didn’t give a damn. But she was staring at him with those solemn eyes again. “Why?”

Shrugging off her hold on his hand, he removed her chemise. “Why what?”

“Why do you care about my feelings, when you’ve never cared about the feelings of your other mistresses? How am I any different?”

Bloody hell. “I thought you were going to make love to me,” he countered. He set her aside long enough to shove off his drawers and trousers in one quick motion, then pulled her back to straddle his lap. “So get to it, will you?”

The sudden gleam in her eyes should have warned him. But even after she’d lifted herself to come down on his cock, encasing him in her delicious heat, he didn’t realize what she was up to. Until she stopped there, her gaze meeting his with mischievous intent.

“What makes me any different, Byrne?” she asked again. Slowly, she drew up on her knees, inch by inch making him groan.

“God preserve me from teasing wenches,” he complained as he tried futilely to make her increase her motions.

Licking her finger, she rubbed it over her nipple. “You did say you like to watch. Or was that just a lie?”

His cock swelled to unimaginable hardness inside her. “Not a…lie…” With a low curse, he thrust his pelvis up at her. “Come on, Christabel—”

“How am I any different?” she asked again.

She was going to wring it out of him somehow, wasn’t she? That’s what he got for letting her anywhere near his former mistresses.

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“You’re honest and direct,” he bit out. “You don’t play games.” He lifted one eyebrow. “Except in the bedchamber.”

As a smile broke over her face, she began to move. It was slow, but steady, a torturous ecstasy that made him writhe beneath her. “What else?” she prodded.

He was nearly out of his mind already, and she’d barely started to make love to him. For a woman who’d only recently learned how to find her own pleasure, she certainly knew how to make a man work for his. But God, was it blissful work. “You…don’t…treat me like…a never-ending…fountain of gifts.”

She laughed. “Who does that?”

“Every mistress…I’ve ever had,” he choked out. “Except you.”

With a smile, she increased her motions until he thought he would die from the sheer joy of being inside her, hearing her laugh, seeing her face aglow and her eyes alight. For him. Because of him.

“A-Anything…else?” she managed as she rode him harder, her glorious hair a-tumble and her lush breasts bouncing so enticingly that he couldn’t keep from grabbing one in his mouth and sucking it until she gasped. “Why, Byrne?” she whispered. “Why do you…care about…myfeelings?”

He tore his mouth from her breast to rasp, “Because you…make me…want to be good. And no one…

no one…has ever done that.”

She clasped his head to her breast. “That’s odd. You makeme …want to be…bad.”

He could feel his orgasm building, thundering toward the peak. Quickly, he reached down and fingered her between the legs until he felt her muscles tightening around his cock, milking it, urging him higher and higher.

“Then perhaps we…can meet…in the middle…my darling.”

A cry erupted from her throat as she clutched him tightly to her breasts. He followed right after her, spilling himself inside her with a hoarse growl of satisfaction. A long time later, after they’d finished and Christabel lay cradled in his lap, he realized he’d never felt such contentment in his life. The soothing rumble of the carriage wheels cocooned them in a private world he could stay in forever. In the past, being alone with a mistress after making love had made him restless. With Christabel, it felt like heaven.

“Byrne?”

“Hmm?” he asked, stroking her arm.

“Was Lord Stokely right? Did Philip really not have a mistress?”

He sighed. That she could think of her husband right now somewhat dampened his enjoyment. “Does it matter?”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv She lifted her gaze to his. “If he had a mistress, it means I wasn’t enough to make him happy.”

“No,” he said fiercely, “it doesn’t mean that in the least. It means he was too much an idiot to realize what a treasure he held in his hand.”

She eyed him askance. “Is that why all your friends have lovers and mistresses? Because they’re idiots?”

“Notall my friends are incapable of fidelity. Draker and Iversley are faithful to their wives, and their wives adore them.”

“Yes,” she said consideringly, “there is that.”

Therewas that. If his brothers were any indication, fidelity was indeed possible in a marriage. But would it last? Could it?

“As for my other so-called friends,” he said, “their marriages were built on practicality rather than affection. When people choose spouses for the financial and social assets they bring to the marriage, they may not always find ones whose company they actually enjoy.”

Her voice turned bitter. “And sometimes, even when a marriage is built on mutual affection, one’s spouse might come to dislike one’s company enough to seek another’s.”

He held her closer, brushing his lips over her frowning brow. “Haversham clearly did like your company, from what he said to Stokely. If he had any mistress at all, it was gambling.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen gambling turn father against son, mother against daughter, and husband against wife. It had nothing to do with you, my sweet. The obsession was probably there long before you came along. And once Haversham had the leisure to gamble whenever he pleased, there would have been no reasoning with him.”

She curled against his shoulder. “So you don’t think he had a mistress?”

“I never heard anything about him and other women. Apparently no one else did, either.” When she merely digested that in silence, he added, “Who told you that he had a mistress?”

She reached for the carriage blanket lying folded on the seat across from them, then pulled it up to cover them both. “It doesn’t matter. I probably jumped to conclusions—”

“Who, Christabel? Tell me.”

She swallowed. “His Highness.”

He stiffened. “Prinny?He’s the arse who told you Haversham had a mistress?”

“It wasn’t like that. I’m not sure he meant to imply—”

“Tell me exactly what he said.” When she bristled at his commanding tone, he nuzzled her hair to soften her. “And how did you come to discuss such a thing with the prince, anyway?”

She sighed. “The first time I became aware of the missing letters was when I was called to London for a private audience. The prince claimed that my husband had apparently sold my father’s letters. He was unsure how much I knew, but I admitted at once that I knew what letters he meant and what was in Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv them. Then he said that Lord Stokely was threatening to publish them if His Highness did not…give him a certain boon.”

“What sort of boon?” When she remained silent, Gavin took her by the chin and turned her face to his.

“Come now, lass, surely it can’t hurt for you to tell me what Stokely wants for them. I’ve already guessed that they concern Prinny as much as your father, so you won’t be revealing that.”

She stared at him a long moment before uttering a heartfelt sigh. “I suppose not.” Her tone grew steely.

“The impudent scoundrel wants His Highness to broker a marriage between him and Princess Charlotte, now that her engagement to the Prince of Orange has fallen through.”

Gavin stared at her, stunned. “Is he insane?”

“Not entirely. She once carried on a clandestine correspondence with a handsome captain of the guards, so I suppose Lord Stokely figured that a baron would be an improvement over that.”

“I seriously doubt that her father sees it that way. According to Draker, Prinny means for Charlotte to make a politically advantageous match.”

Christabel nodded. “You can be sure that the prince has no desire to wed Princess Charlotte to Lord Stokely. But Lord Stokely seems determined to gain her as a wife.”

“I suppose he’s grown tired of being on the outside of society, even if he did put himself there with his scandalous house parties and wild living. Perhaps he thinks marrying a princess will erase his bad reputation.”

“That makes sense. But it doesn’t make his blackmail any less reprehensible.”

“No,” he agreed, though not wholeheartedly. After all, if he got his own hands on the letters, he meant to use them to gain something for himself, too. But at least he wasn’t aiming to marry the princess and drag her into it. That made him less a villain than Stokely. Didn’t it? And why did it matter how much a villain he was, anyway? When it came to Prinny, any villainy against the man was justified. “Go on. Prinny told you about Stokely’s threats, and…”

“I couldn’t believe Philip betrayed my trust by selling my family’s letters to Lord Stokely. So I told the prince that Lord Stokely had to be lying about having them. Even after the prince showed me the one letter Lord Stokely had sent as proof, I protested Philip’s involvement. But he said it was either Philip or me or…or someone else close to him…like…like…”

Tears filled her eyes, making an unfamiliar knot form in Gavin’s gut. “Like?” he prodded.

“Ph-Philip’s mistress.” She started to cry, and he wound his arms more tightly about her, cursing Prinny to hell. “I told him Philip didn’t…ha-have a mistress…and he pointed out that I wouldn’t know if he did…and the discussion ended there. I was too…shocked and numb…to ask who she was.”

Brushing away her tears, she pulled herself together. After a moment, she continued in a muted tone. “I assumed that the prince knew for sure that Philip had one. But now that I look back, he was probably speculating. And after he raised the possibility, it made sense to me—Philip came to town so often, and he never wanted me to accompany him.”

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“Was it during that meeting that Prinny got you to agree to this scheme?”

She nodded.

“Damnhim to hell. You were distraught, and he took advantage.”

“You don’t think he deliberately mentioned the mistress, do you?”

“I don’t know. Possibly. But Prinny is so cynical about marriage and women that he could have merely assumed Haversham had one.”

She stared up at his face. “You really dislike His Highness, don’t you?”

“Hate and loathe would be more like it.”

She caressed his cheek with her hand. “My father used to say that hatred only hurts the hater; it does nothing to affect the hated. Which makes it an impractical emotion.”

It was the first time she’d mentioned her father in days, and her deeply affectionate tone gave him pause.

“How badly would it hurt your father if these letters are published?”

She swallowed. “It depends on how the scandal plays out and which political party wins the ensuing fight. The best scenario is that he might lose his commission and be disgraced; the worst is that he’d be hanged for treason.”

Bloody hell, what the devil wasin these letters? And what would happen toher if Gavin got his hands on them?

Nothingwould happen to her, he vowed as he tightened his arms about her. He wasn’t going to publish the letters himself—just use them to make Prinny admit the truth about his mother to the world.

“Well, none of that will happen,” he said firmly. “We’ll make sure of that.I’ll make sure of it.”

As if that solved everything, she flashed him a tender smile, then rested her head against his chest. But long after she’d fallen asleep, he continued to worry. What if he couldn’t get the letters from Stokely—what would happen to her then? And was there anything he could do to stop it?