Mistress By Mistake (28 page)

He heard her sigh and then whisper the word he needed to hear. And then the problem of Anne seemed to float out of range as the miracle of Charlie’s love washed over him. Her kiss was so innocent. So hopeful. So hard to resist, and he would never have to. Why had it taken him so long to realize that love could be separated from obsession and defeat? Charlie would never collar him and tug at his leash on a whim. She would give herself to him without reservation, and he to her. Anne as an obstacle was removed from his heart and their path.

Her finger stroked the raised scar on his cheek, a permanent reminder of his stupidity. But he would brave any sword if it meant a future with Charlie. Perhaps every single stumble had led him right here where he should be, in cooling bathwater with this stubborn, loving woman. A woman who saved his life with a chamber pot. In the middle of the most delicious, the most disarming kiss, he began to laugh.

He couldn’t stop. Relief coursed through his blood like the richest wine. Charlie’s eyes flew open, her dark brows beetled. She looked as prim as if she had one of her ridiculous lacy caps on her head. She smacked his chest.

“You simply cannot get the hang of this proposing business. Just what is so amusing?”

“Oh, my love. Think about it. A short while ago I entered a dark house to commit the sin of seriously mistaking your identity. You must admit we got off to a most dubious beginning. I seem to remember candlesticks and kidnapping and a bite or two. But there’s no doubt. None. You were made just for me, and I thank God for it.”

“Well.” She seemed somewhat mollified by his explanation and just a bit speechless. He tangled his fingers in her hair and she winced.

“How is your head?”

“Sore. My poor mama’s fainting lessons were unsuccessful, I’m afraid.”

Bay grinned. “You had fainting lessons? Just what else did your mother try to teach you?”

“I was a poor study. She would be horrified to see what Deb and I have come to.”

“Now, now. Your sister is a respectable married woman and you are about to be.”

She leveled a clear blue gaze at him. “You
really
want to marry me?”

“Have I not proposed awkwardly twice already? If you tell me the third time’s the charm I shall endeavor to do it better, but only once more. A man can only debase himself so much.”

Charlie scooted back, sloshing water onto the carpet. “Debase? Is that how you think of it? Lowering yourself to my level?”

“You quite mistake me. I’m on my knees, Charlie, and damned uncomfortable.”

Charlie glanced down, and just as quickly looked into his face. His erect shaft pierced the water like a rigid fish.

“I n-need to wash my hair,” she stammered.

Bay leaned in closer. “I’ll do it for you, if you do something for me.”

“Anything,” she whispered. “You know I’ll do anything for you.”

There was an urgent tapping on the bedroom door. Charlotte disentangled herself from the covers and Bay’s sleep-heavy arm and threw on her gray robe. Running her hands through her hair, she wished Bay had allowed it to dry before he fell upon her like a starving man. But a few knots were nothing to the saturated bliss of her body. She cracked the door open.

A pale Frazier stood there, his arm in a sling.

“What are you doing up? Oh, that sounds awful, but I thought you weren’t to be disturbed. How are you, Mr. Frazier?”

“I’ve never been better, Miss Fallon. Miss Kitty Toothaker has agreed to be my bride.” The man grinned like an idiot, and the gruff old Scot completely disappeared. “But Sir Michael’s wanted below. It’s Dr. Dixfield come to call, and he seems a mite agitated.”

“What time is it? Oh, good Lord. Lady Whitley hasn’t escaped, has she?” Charlotte looked down the hall behind him as if she expected to see the Black Widow any second.

“Just on four. And no. That was the first thing I asked. He says she’s got plenty of protection at the house and he felt confident enough to leave her.”

Charlotte hoped the doctor didn’t have any spare firearms lying around. “If you give us a few minutes, I’ll wake Sir Michael and we’ll get dressed and be right down. Have Mrs. Kelly do up a tea tray. I’m actually hungry.” They had slept right through lunch. No, not slept.

Angus Frazier gave her a beatific smile. “Yes, yes. You should eat more in your condition.”

Charlotte shut the door. Did everyone in the entire household know her secret? Everyone but Bay.

What if she wasn’t pregnant, but coming to the end of her child-bearing years? She knew of women her age who got sick and whose flow had stopped. She also knew women who bore offspring well into their forties. Mrs. King in Little Hyssop even had a babe at fifty-one, the same year one of her daughters gave birth to her seventh grandchild. Perhaps she should see a doctor.

Well, there was one waiting downstairs. She leaned over her lover, sprawled like Gulliver across the linens, his cock rampant, a sleep-sweetened smile on his face. She would be interrupting a very pleasant dream.

“Bay, wake up. Dr. Dixfield is here.”

“Unh.” He rolled over, giving her a very fine view of his bottom. It was a beautiful bottom to be sure, white, tight, just the right curvature to fill out his pantaloons properly, but she needed to see his dark eyes. Wide open.

“Bay!” Sharper now. He sat bolt upright, reaching for an invisible weapon. Realization dawned and he gave her a sexy smile. “Sorry I fell asleep. Come back to bed and we’ll take up where we left off.”

“Bay, you need to get dressed. Dr. Dixfield is below.”

“Damnation! Has she run off?” He was stuffing a leg in his ruined pants before she had a chance to even walk to the wardrobe.

“He says not. I’ve ordered tea and sandwiches. You haven’t eaten a thing.”

Bay gave her a sardonic look, and she felt the blush spread from her nose to her toes. Bay had been very, very thorough, “proposing” to her again and again until there was absolutely no question she would agree to be his wife. No wonder losing him had deranged Anne Whitley.

He stuck a comb in the tepid basin and slicked back his coppery hair. The longer it grew, the more it seemed to turn autumnal. Even with a day’s growth of beard, he was so handsome the breath left her.

He gave her a quick kiss. “Take your time. I won’t decide anything important without you.”

And he was gone.

Jamie Dixfield was one of his oldest friends. Bay had mentioned him numerous times over the past few weeks, recalling one boyhood stunt or another. He had entrusted Anne to Jamie’s care, and not only because he was a doctor. Charlotte wished to make a good impression, but was faced with her dull dresses. Gray or brown? She pulled a pale ashy muslin dress over her head, quickly braided her hair, pinched her cheeks, and bit her lips. That would have to do.

She needn’t have worried. When she reached the parlor, neither man even glanced her way. Both of them were standing before the bank of windows, not enjoying that view either but emanating a certain menace toward each other. The tea table was untouched. Nervous, Charlotte cleared her throat.

The doctor was the first to break away from Bay’s glare. He was an attractive man, if somewhat disheveled, with curling fair hair and an angular face. He looked like he’d been wrestling alligators on the Nile, but she supposed he had only wrestled a distraught Anne Whitley all day. Smiling, he revealed even, white teeth. “You must be Charlie. May I be one of the first to offer my wishes for your future happiness?”

His hands on hers were long, elegant, and warm. Good, safe hands for a doctor. “Charlotte, actually. No one calls me Charlie anymore, except for Bay.” And her sister, but there was no point in bringing her into this. “How do you do, Dr. Dixfield?”

“It’s just Jamie, but if you must be Charlotte, I can be James.” He winked at her. Out of the corner of her own eye she saw Bay flex his fists as if he longed to thrash his oldest friend for displaying such charm to his fiancée.

“What is going on?” Charlotte asked baldly. “Whatever it is, you’ll both do better with some tea and a sandwich. Won’t you sit down and join me?”

“Tea won’t solve this,” Bay bit out.

“Very likely not.” Jamie smiled at her again, but the smile didn’t reach his sober gray eyes. “I’m afraid my old friend and I are having a rather fundamental disagreement. As lovely as it is to meet you, perhaps we can become better acquainted another time.”

“You’ll not order Charlie out of
my
parlor in
my
house!”

“No, indeed. I’d never interfere with the woman you love.” Dixfield sat on the edge of the nearest chair, inspecting a loose button on his wrinkled jacket.

“Love!” Charlotte sat down quickly as Bay stalked about the room, waving his arms about like a windup toy. She had never seen him so ruffled, not even when his life had been in danger. “Don’t talk to me of love! You’re as unhinged as she is!”

“I beg your pardon,” Charlotte said with feeling, “but just because I agreed to marry you does not mean I’m unhinged.”

“Not you,” both men spoke at once.

“Oh, do sit down, Bay, you’re making me dizzy. What do you take in your tea, Jamie?”

“You can’t turn this debacle into a tea party, Charlie. It won’t work.” But at least Bay landed on a sofa, too far away to have tea or any sort of plate passed to him.

“Sugar please, no milk or lemon.” The men were quiet while she poured a cup, her hand shaking just a trifle, and passed it to the doctor. She served herself, adding a huge dollop of milk for the baby.

“Now,” she said after taking a bracing sip, “suppose one of you tells me what this is all about.”

The mantel clock ticked a full minute before Bay spoke, his voice dripping sarcasm. “It seems the doctor here has a peculiar plan to bring Lady Whitley back to some semblance of sanity. Why don’t you tell her, Jamie? I find I’m unequal to the task.”

Charlotte had heard of asylums for those afflicted with mental impairment. Some people in the ton even went so far as to visit the inmates—in Bedlam, for example—for sheer amusement. Such cruelty. Surely this kind, friendly man didn’t plan on subjecting Anne Whitley, no matter what she’d done, to such a fate.

And he didn’t. What he said next was far more frightening.

“It seems love is in the air—first for Angus Frazier, then for you and Bay, and now for me. I’ve asked Lady Whitley to marry me.”

Charlotte dropped her cup to the floor. Its contents fell on her slippers and it rolled harmlessly on the thick Aubusson carpet. She was too shocked to remark on the hot tea finding its way between her toes.

“You see? Unhinged,” said Bay grimly.

“I have loved Anne Buckland since I was a boy. Bay had his turn with her, and now it’s mine. We talked for hours when she woke up, Anne and I. She just wants what all women want: a home, children, a man she can depend on. She can depend on me. I’ve had my chances with the ladies, but I never married. It’s always been Anne. When I heard her husband died, I was getting my courage up to go see her, but then she came back home.”

“But—but—” Once she found her tongue, she revealed their shameful recent history. Charlotte was fairly sure she mentioned the word gun a few times. Bay chimed in about the brutes who kidnapped him. Nothing would shake Jamie Dixfield’s certainty that he could make Anne Whitley happy. His eyes shone as he pleaded his case.

“But I realize it would be awkward if I kept my practice here. My father has retired, but he’s still got some good days left in him, long enough to train a new doctor for these parts. Bay has more money than God, you know, more than he’ll ever need. I’ve come for a loan. He can set me up in another town where no one knows Anne or the trouble she’s had. I heard about a situation not long ago from a doctor friend of mine up in Scotland. A new country. A new start.”

Bay looked shattered. “If I thought it could work, I’d give you my whole fortune, Jamie, but you don’t know what she’s like now.”

“Oh, I believe I do. I was there this morning when she had her little fit, remember? She’s told me everything, Bay—what her husband did to her and what she did to survive it. She wants a baby so badly that it’s clouded her judgment. That happens to some women. I’ve seen it before.”

“I wager you’ve never been at the business end of a gun over it,” Bay snapped.

“No. She didn’t need to hold a gun on me. I was most willing.” Dixfield flushed, realizing what he’d just revealed. Bay stared at him, slack jawed. “I’ll marry her, whether you approve or not, whether you can give me any money or not.”

“Good God. She was drugged, Jamie. I watched you dose her myself. You can’t count on anything she said or did.”

“It was just honey and brandy. I knew she needed to sleep, and she did. She’s sorry, Bay, truly sorry for causing you both such trouble. It’s as if she was under some kind of spell and now she’s snapped out of it.”

“You’re the one who’s under a spell, man!” Bay returned to pacing the room, running his hand through his hair every seventh step. Charlotte counted—he was as regular as a metronome.

“You’re right,” Dixfield said. “And you of all people know what it’s like. You’ve moved on, Bay, and found your happiness. Don’t deny me mine.”

Bay snorted in disgust. He pulled open a French door and slammed it shut. Charlotte watched him lope down the green lawn toward the beach, leaving her alone with the love-struck doctor.

“I know Anne just sees me as a port in the storm,” he said softly. “But I have hope she’ll come to care for me, even love me. She—she was very responsive. Physically.” His cheeks were crimson but he continued the unwanted confession. “She’s had a hard life. Her only true peace was her brief time with Bay. Not even six months. Then she played her games. I know she hurt Bay terribly, but I swear she won’t bother you again.”

Charlotte’s mouth was dry. “How can you know that?”

“Because I mean to get her with child, children if we’re so lucky, and she’ll be too busy to think about the past. I’ve waited for her more than half my life.”

Apart from her obvious beauty, Charlotte could see no reason why any man should fall in love with Anne Whitley. Yet these two old friends had, and for most of two decades. Perhaps her judgment was clouded as well, and they knew a different Anne, one who was not shrill and dangerous. “I can’t trust her,” Charlotte said at last. “Especially not now.”