One Night With A Prince (26 page)

“I don’t know if I like gaining funds that way.”

“By besting idiots like Lieutenant Markham? That man is an insult to the good name of soldiers everywhere, him and his phaeton and his airs. You should be pleased you and Mr. Byrne won his last pence. And his phaeton.”

“I suppose.” Last night had been one of the few times she and Byrne had been whist partners. The game had been a most potent illustration of Byrne’s ruthlessness. “Byrne shouldn’t have talked the man into staking his horses as well. That was unnecessary.”

“Bah, Markham did not have to wager his horses. He did it because he thought he could win.” Rosa smiled proudly. “He should have realized that you and Mr. Byrne are invincible.”

Christabel snorted. “Hardly. Though I don’t understand why Byrne was so determined to win his horses. Byrne told the man he ‘liked the diddies on your nags.’ Why would he say such a vulgar thing?”

Rosa shrugged. “It hardly matters why. The point is he won.”

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“But he should have at least allowed the man to keep his horses,” she persisted. “Lord Stokely had already informed the lieutenant that he would have to leave, now that he’d lost all his funds. So the poor man has no means for returning to London. What will he do?”

“I heard he walked to Salisbury this morning and pawned his watch for a coach ticket.”

“Oh no.” But the lieutenant couldn’t appeal to Lady Jenner for help, since her husband was present and unlikely to offer his carriage to his wife’s lover. And no one else would wish to help him. Thiswas the sort of people she found herself among, with Byrne their Prince of Sin. Sometimes it disheartened her to think of how far she’d fallen. And for what? A few glorious nights in bed? A man who’d as much as told her he would never marry her and could almost certainly never love her? Not that she wanted him to love her, oh no. She was taking no chances with a man who blatantly referred to himself as lacking a soul, a man who’d tried countless times to coax her into telling him what was in Papa’s letters. She was proud she’d held firm, though she wondered if it even mattered anymore. Because they couldn’t find the blasted things. Byrne thought they were probably in a hidden safe, but they’d found no safe anywhere after going over every inch of Lord Stokely’s library and study, as well as several other public rooms. Time grew short, and still nothing. She hoped to change that today, however. “Are you done yet?” she asked Rosa impatiently.

“Almost. But what is your hurry? The men have gone out shooting, so it is not as if your Mr. Byrne can spend the day with you.”

True, but he’d surprised her by suggesting that she use the time to search while Lord Stokely was occupied with the other men. Probably he thought she’d find nothing anyway. Or he was so sure of her that he believed she would tell him if shedid find them.

Whatever the reason, she would take advantage of it and search Lord Stokely’s bedchamber this morning—if the man kept a hidden safe, it might be there. And once she found it, she’d get Byrne to open it.

Rosa put the final pin in place, and Christabel leaped to her feet. “Thank you, Rosa,” she called as she grabbed her silver fan and left the room. “I’ll see you here again in the morning.”

She’d been spending her wild nights with Byrne, then creeping back to her room before the other guests stirred. She wasn’t sure why she bothered being discreet, however; no one else seemed to. Out in the hall, she glanced both ways, then slid over to Lord Stokely’s door. The downstairs servants would be occupied with serving the early risers breakfast, though it was past noon, and the upstairs maids would be helping those female guests who hadn’t brought their own ladies’ maids. Here in the family wing, the servants were done with the morning’s work, so hopefully she wouldn’t surprise anyone. Still, as she reached for the door handle, she prepared a story for why she was walking into Lord Stokely’s bedchamber unannounced.

The door was locked.

She couldn’t believe it. She tried the door again, but it didn’t budge.
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Her eyes narrowed. Why would the man keep his door locked with only the two of them in the family wing? Unless he hadn’t gone with the other men to shoot. Just to be sure, she knocked and called out,

“Lord Stokely? Are you there?”

Rosa, curse her, stuck her head out Christabel’s door and frowned. “I saw him leave with the shooting party this morning. And what would you be wanting with him anyway?”

Christabel glowered at her servant. “I need to ask him a question, not that it’s any ofyour concern. And aren’t you supposed to be seeing to the laundering of my drawers?”

Muttering to herself, Rosa closed the door, but Christabel knew the woman would now be listening for her to leave. Sometimes having a nosy servant was quite a nuisance. Tripping the blade on her little fan, she stuck it in the lock and poked around a bit, but her attempts brought her nothing. She could think of no reason for Lord Stokely to keep his room locked, unless he was hiding something in his bedchamber. And what else could it be but her letters? She would have to bring Byrne up here—if anyone knew how to pick a lock, it would be he. Somehow, they could work out a way to sneak into Lord Stokely’s bedchamber when he wasn’t there. Still, in case she was wrong, she’d keep looking elsewhere. There was a private drawing room downstairs that hardly anyone used—it would be easy to search in there. She hurried there, but when she walked in, she startled a group of women who were listening intently as Lady Jenner read to them from a slender book.

“Oh, Lady Haversham, you must join us!” cried Mrs. Talbot. “You will surely find Lady Jenner’s new book as droll as we do.”

She started to murmur some excuse, but Lady Jenner said, “You can add your store of information to ours.”

“Information about what?”

“Lovers, of course,” Lady Hungate put in. “We’re comparing notes.” She gestured to the volume in Lady Jenner’s hand. “Some silly female has published a book of memoirs about her years as ‘mistress to the loftiest of theton ,’ and we’re trying to guess who she might be.”

Christabel was dying to hear more.

“You have to join us,” Lady Jenner said. “Except for Lady Kingsley, the rest of us here have all been Byrne’s mistresses at one time or another—we simplyhave to know if your experience of him is the same as ours.”

Cursing herself for a fool, Christabel entered and closed the door. She’d been trying to convince herself that she meant more to Byrne than a mere mistress. Listening to his other mistresses would serve as a potent reminder that she was no different to him than the rest of his women. And she needed such a reminder just now.

“Oh, look and see if the author mentions Byrne!” Mrs. Talbot told Lady Jenner as Christabel took the
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remaining chair, near the door. “He might be in one of the later chapters.”

“I doubt that,” Lady Hungate said. “The writer is clearly a courtesan, and Byrne’s mistresses are always married women.”

“And the occasional widow,” Lady Kingsley said archly.

Did she know that Christabel knew all about her and Byrne? Probably. Lord Stokely was too much of a gossip—and too intent on stirring trouble—not to have told her.

“I’ve read the whole of the memoirs,” Lady Jenner said, “and there’s no mention of Byrne.”

“Perhaps he paid to be kept out of it,” Mrs. Talbot said. “I heard that certain gentlemen received letters offering to keep them out if they paid a particular sum.”

Lady Hungate laughed. “Byrne pay blackmail? He doesn’t care who knows about his love affairs. Sometimes I think the man actually relishes the gossip about him.”

“No doubt,” Lady Jenner remarked. “He probably considers it a good thing to be known as the man with the warmest mouth and the coldest heart.”

“He’s notthat bad,” Lady Hungate chided. “And you have to admit that his prowess in bed makes up for any coolness of manner.”

The women uttered a collective sigh.

Mrs. Talbot turned to Christabel. “Does he still do that thing with his finger where he—”

“Mrs. Talbot, really!” Lady Hungate protested. “I don’t think we should discuss specifics.”

“Why not?” the woman said stoutly. “Who else can we discuss such matters with? And you know very well you loved what he did with his fingers.”

The fact that Christabel knew exactly what the woman was talking about chilled her. Because she loved it, too. Dear Lord, she reallywas just one of his harem, wasn’t she?

“Byrne is wonderful, I’ll grant you,” another woman said, “but he’s not the only man who knows what to do in the bedchamber. I once had this lover…”

The next hour was spent in the most embarrassing and enlightening discussion Christabel had ever heard. Some of the things they talked about, she hadn’t even realized were possible. And some of them were quite intriguing.

She listened avidly, fascinated by the variety of ways a man could pleasure a woman. And vice versa. Perhaps if she could please Byrne in bed with some of these techniques, she might hold on to him after this was over.

She groaned. Hold on to him, indeed. Why did she never learn? And she ought to be ashamed of herself, thinking of an impossible future with Byrne when she should be worrying about Papa andhis future.

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“Getting back to Byrne,” Lady Jenner said, “I’ll tell you what Idon’t miss about the man—his insistence upon using French letters. I like the feel of a man’s flesh inside me, and it’s not as if I’m some whore teeming with disease. If it’s siring children he wants to avoid, why not pull out at the end like the other men?”

Christabel hid her surprise. It never occurred to her that a man might do that.

“I like French letters myself,” Mrs. Talbot retorted. “Less messy. Does he still insist upon it, Lady Haversham?”

Christabel’s cheeks turned scarlet. “I…I…would rather not say.”

“Look how you’re blushing,” Lady Jenner said snidely. “Do we offend you with our frank talk?”

“Not at all,” she lied.

“But you haven’t contributed much to the discussion. What does Byrne do that annoysyou ?”

She sought for something less…indelicate to share. “He steals the covers. I always have to steal them back in the middle of the night.”

The other women exchanged perplexed glances. Lady Hungate leaned forward. “Are you saying that Byrne actually spends the night with you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“There’s no ‘of course’ about it,” Mrs. Talbot put in. “Byrne never sleeps with anyone. He might doze, but never for more than an hour or two.”

When the others nodded their agreement, Christabel’s heart began to pound. “So Byrne has never spent a full night with any of you?”

“No, never,” Lady Hungate said.

Lady Jenner gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s only because she’s a widow. He sleeps with her because she has no husband waiting for her.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” a young woman said. “My husband was always away, and my servants are discreet, but Byrne would never stay the night, even when I begged him.”

Yet he stayed with Christabel every night,all night. Her blood thundered in her ears. Perhaps hedid care, after all.

Then a lowering thought hit her: Byrne only stayed with her to keep her from being vulnerable to Lord Stokely.

“What always annoyed me about Byrne,” Lady Hungate remarked, “was the way he insisted on calling me ‘my sweet’ or ‘lass.’”

“It’s the Irish in him,” Mrs. Talbot said. “Irishmen are like that with the endearments.”

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“I don’t mind his using an endearment; it’s the ones he chooses. I’m a grown woman, for heaven’s sake, not a ‘lass.’ And I’m certainly not ‘sweet.’”

“I don’t mind that so much,” Christabel admitted. “And I rather enjoy it when he calls me ‘darling.’”

Once again, there was that exchange of looks between the others. “He calls you ‘darling’?” Mrs. Talbot said incredulously.

Finding all eyes trained on her, Christabel mumbled, “Sometimes, yes.”

Lady Hungate sat back in her chair, eyes narrowing. “Well, well, isn’t that interesting?”

“It means nothing,” Lady Jenner snapped. “I’m sure he must have called me ‘darling’ a time or two. I just don’t remember.”

“I remember well enough,” the young woman put in, a trace of envy in her voice. “He never calledme that.”

“Me either,” Mrs. Talbot admitted.

“It seems Byrne has been showing Lady Haversham a different side than he showed the rest of us,”

Lady Hungate said.

“Nonsense,” Lady Jenner snapped. “A leopard doesn’t change his spots. If he behaves any differently with her, it’s only because he wants something.”

Christabel turned her fan over in her fingers. That was quite possibly true. Although she couldn’t see how calling her “darling” helped him get anything.

“Nonetheless,” Lady Hungate remarked, “Byrne is growing older. At some point a man does have to stop sowing wild oats and start sowing the more fruitful kind. Even his sort sometimes fall in love and marry.”

“Byrne?” Lady Jenner said with pure contempt. “Interested in hearth and home? Don’t be ridiculous. The man is incapable of love, much less marriage.”

“That’s not true,” a quiet voice broke in. When everyone turned to Lady Kingsley in surprise, she colored but pressed on. “I once…er…knew a woman who said he claimed to love her, and even proposed marriage.”

“The woman is either mad or a liar,” Lady Jenner said stoutly. “Why, if you even so much as mention love to the man, that’s the end of it. He might take you to bed one more time, but mention love, and you’ll receive your congé the next day. It doesn’t matter if you tell him you didn’t mean it or were joking or—” She broke off, as if realizing how much she’d revealed. Then she thrust out her chin stubbornly. “If you want to end your association with him, all you need say is, ‘I love you,’ and he’ll end it himself.”