The Perfect Mistress (25 page)

He had started this husband-hunting expedition in a testy mood, but with each marriage prospect that turned to ashes, his spirits had improved. He couldn't believe someone as unique as she could find a suitable mate from a common newspaper advertisement. And, to his relief, her initial experiences had just borne him out.

Still, there was always the possibility that she might find someone close—

someone dull and agreeable and earnest and virtuous and bearable enough

—and might tell herself that she could make do with him. He sat back in the rear-facing seat and took a deep breath as they rolled into the park and along one of the carriage lanes. He just had to hope that her other prospects would prove every bit as disagreeable.

Shortly, they were overtaken by a burst of hoofbeats, and as he sat forward with a scowl two men in riding clothes drew even with the carriage and hailed him.

"Sandbourne! I thought this was your rig!" A tall, strikingly handsome young man in a fine black coat and top hat reined in beside the carriage. His head snapped sharply to the side when he spotted Gabrielle in the seat across from Pierce, and his handsome face lighted with pleasure. "I say, Sandbourne, you have stunning company today. Hold up and give us a chance to meet your guest."

Before he could prevent them, his two acquaintances were calling orders to his driver, reining in, and leaning against the sides of the carriage, staring at Gabrielle.

"Ruffians—can't a man have a decent ride in the park without being accosted by the likes of you?" Pierce growled.

The pair of horsemen ignored his irritation, looking Gabrielle over with admiration that narrowly trod the bounds of decency. Feeling their gazes roaming her, she looked to Pierce with an expression that communicated her concern about how he might explain her. When they refused to be put off, demanding he act the gentleman, he expelled a hard breath and said flatly:

"Very well. Gabrielle, my dear, these inconsiderate bounders are Peter Atcheson, Lord Arundale, and Harry Shively, recently become Viscount Shively. Remember their names and faces and avoid them at all costs. They are not to be trusted."

"Come on, Sandbourne, don't dare fill that pretty head with lies. You mustn't believe a word he says," tall, blond Arundale said to her, with a smile that she suspected had probably charmed the socks off many an unsuspecting girl. "We're decent sorts."

She looked at Pierce with a clear question in her eyes.

"I shall probably regret this," he grumbled, turning to them with a disapproving expression. "May I present my cousin, late from France…

Gabrielle…
LaSande
."

"Mademoiselle," Arundale said, bowing from the waist.

"Miss LaSande." Muscular, broad-faced Shively nodded, scarcely taking his eyes from her. "Ye gods, Sandbourne, I didn't know you had relations in France… especially pretty ones."

She nodded to them and explained: "My father was French. The connection is on my mother's side." They seemed to accept Pierce's fiction without much question. A cousin could be close or far: close enough to explain their being in a carriage together, far enough to explain why she was unknown in England.

"I say, if you've just come from France"—Arundale regarded her with a glint of speculation—"then perhaps you've been to the follies in Paris."

"That will be enough of that, Arundale," Pierce said quietly, fixing him with a steely look. "Gabrielle has certainly
never
been to the follies."

Arundale studied Pierce, taking in the deadly earnestness in his tone and the warning in his eyes, then laughed ruefully. "Well, I shouldn't have thought so. But
after all, they are quite famous. Where in France is your home, Miss LaSande?"

"I lived for most of my life in a village just outside Paris, called d'Arcy."

She answered but volunteered nothing more, and her reticence only seemed to inflame their curiosity.

"Lovely city, Paris. I have been thinking of making the trip this autumn,"

Shively put in, then brightened, gazing at Gabrielle. "We were just on the way to Blaisdell's for a bit of refreshment. Do join us, Sandbourne, and allow us of the joy of gazing upon your pretty cousin for a bit longer.

Perhaps she will consent to give me advice on points of interest in Paris." He was so boyish and so charming, Gabrielle couldn't help smiling.

"Come on, Sandbourne, don't be a stick about this," Arundale said genially, giving her a lingering glance. "We'll be on best behavior."

That was how they came to be sitting in Blaisdell's fashionable coffeehouse at five o'clock that afternoon, flanked by two handsome gentlemen intent on learning more about Pierce's stunning young "cousin."

After her initial anxiety passed, Gabrielle relaxed into her role as a demure but well-traveled young woman, deferring to Pierce at times with a naturalness that supported the notion of kinship.

As she warmed under their attention, she also seemed to blossom; her cheeks colored and her eyes began to sparkle with pleasure. In answering queries about Paris and the Champagne district of France, she was nothing short of captivating. Shively and Arundale vied to get her coffee and biscuits, to see that she had a comfortable chair, and to sit as near her as Pierce's glowering presence would allow. They flirted shamelessly with her, and, to her credit, she acknowledged it but declined to play the coquette.

In short, she gave every indication that she was indeed the little-known cousin from France… a genteel young woman, whose beauty was undeniable and whose good sense was a credit to her. But no matter how circumspect she was, Pierce's face and mood steadily darkened, and she was at a loss to explain his increasing surliness.

He was somewhat bewildered himself at the intensity of his mood. The sight of two of his frequent companions in debauch trying to charm and impress Gabrielle sent him into a slow burn. He could see their minds working behind their handsome smiles and smooth manners… as he had seen them do so many times before, as his own had done on just such occasions. Given the chance, they would test both her breeding and her virtue to the very limits. Bastards, he thought. And he backed them off with sharply placed responses that established subtle boundaries around Gabrielle.

They eyed his glowering form and smiled ail the more eagerly at her. The undercurrent of tension between Pierce and his friends grew until Gabrielle withdrew from the conversation and reminded "Cousin Pierce" that he had promised to have her home in time to dress for dinner.

"Home? Don't tell me you are staying with St. Pierce and the Dragon?"

Arundale said, looking Pierce over as if seeing him in a new light.

"The dragon?" She looked to Pierce, who cleared his throat and gave Arundale a cutting look before responding.

"My mother," he explained. "I'm afraid your 'dear Cousin Bea' has a rather different reputation with my friends. She isn't as accommodating with everyone else as she is with you."

"Oh," she said, lowering her eyes to hide her surprise at his fabrication.

Then she recalled the original question. "No, I'm not staying with Cousin Beatrice and Cousin Pierce. My mother and I have taken lodgings of our own in Eaton Square." She looked to Pierce again. "And now I really should be going home."

It was the perfect excuse, and Pierce pounced on it. But Gabrielle's new admirers wouldn't let her go until she promised to speak to them again the next time they saw her. She smiled, adjusted her hat, and agreed.

Pierce spirited her out the door and into his carriage, his face like a thundercloud.

"Nice young men, your friends," she said when they were underway.

"They're womanizing louts."

"They are handsome and well mannered. I found them rather charming."

"They're randy, irresponsible adolescents."

"That must be why you like them so much," she said tartly. It was hardly like a man of his worldliness to warn a woman about a fellow rake's intentions.
Unless
… he feared she was entertaining matrimonial thoughts of them and intended to set her off them by labeling them as jaded and undesirable. She thought of his horror at the notion of helping trap a fellow bachelor into marriage. He was protecting them from her designs, from the ignominy of an inappropriate match. Why the nerve of him! She was good enough for him to lust after and try to seduce, but not good enough to marry one of his pedigreed companions.

Pierce was so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he scarcely noticed the indignation rising in her. His mind's eye was full of images of the way his friends had admired and flattered and cozened her—as far as the limits of decency would allow. The speculation in their faces said they were wondering if Gabrielle was really his cousin or just some new bit of fluff, a potential "trinket" to add to their collection of sexual playthings. The wretches. If they had the slightest inkling that she was the illegitimate daughter of a mistress—even the fabled love child of a duke—their handsome smiles and courtly manners could turn quickly ugly and base. He had seen it happen before. And the thought of them treating Gabrielle in such a manner made his very blood boil.

"So"—she broke the silence with a terse comment—"your mother's name is Beatrice. And, I take it, she has a
lovely
disposition." She gave him a vengeful smile. "That certainly explains a great deal about
you
."

Stung, he sat upright and impaled her with a look. "You know, you bear a striking similarity to my mother. I hadn't seen it until just now. Both of you are ruthless in your pursuit of respectability. And both of you are perfectly fanatical about marriage as a means to secure it."

When she seemed startled by his response, he smiled grimly.

"Let me tell you about your soul-mate, 'Cousin Beatrice.' My mother is about as pleasant as a rogue sow… and just about as maternal. She drove my father from his own house and, since his death, has spent the last decade trying to run and ruin my life just as she tried to run and ruin his. The only two aspects of my life she cannot bend to her control are my politics and my sex life, though she would dearly love to get her hands on both of them.

The fact that I am not married and settled dutifully under her thumb regularly throws her into apoplexy. And I would rather cut off my right arm than give her the satisfaction of trapping me into a proper marriage."

The blast of his anger so shocked her that she had to drop her own in order to handle it. She had unwittingly touched a raw nerve in him. And as he broke off his angry discourse and sat staring out of the carriage, she put the pieces together. He was the product of a bitter and volatile marriage, which had poisoned his notions of marriage and family life. And he loathed his mother's attempt to control him by marrying him off…

Suddenly she understood. His reason for helping her. The defiant intensity of his sensuality and the dark current that sometimes ran beneath it. His revulsion at the prospect of inveigling another man into marriage. His attraction to her, based on her illicit birth and her rebellion against her mother's expectations. She understood his cynicism about marriage and his comments about her tidy view of it. She understood his anger. She understood
him
.

The only thing she didn't understand was why—now that there was little chance of him seducing her—he continued to bother with her.

Across the carriage from her, he was roiling inside, asking himself the same thing. What was it about her that wouldn't allow him to let her go?

Why was he ferrying her around the city so she could look for a husband when he personally despised marriage and thought her ideas of it bordered on the ludicrous? He glanced at her and saw her look away quickly. She had been staring at him, and now he returned that interest.

She was warm and lovely, intelligent and spirited. And determined to have a life that was different from her mother's. She was so determined that she was willing to trade a life of luxury and pleasure for the right to make that choice.

Part of him wanted to see that she got what she wanted—a respectable life, a marriage. And part of him wanted to take her back to his house and his bed and make mad, passionate love to her until… Until what? Until she admitted she wanted him more than she wanted respectability? Until he somehow satisfied this bone-deep hunger that seemed to be growing inside him? Until he got her out of his system?

When he deposited her at her door, he stood for a moment on the steps, shifting from foot to foot and wondering if he was losing every bit of his sanity. "If we're going to Reading tomorrow, we shall have to leave earlier than three. I shall have to call for you at one."

She looked up at him with an expression of surprise and relief that made something in his chest constrict. "I wasn't sure you would still be willing to help…"

"Whatever else I am, 'Cousin Gabrielle,' I am not a quitter."

He gave her hand a sardonic kiss, and as he rode off in his carriage, he added, to himself: "Even when quitting is the only sane thing to do."

The next morning Gabrielle arranged for the cook to fill a hamper with food and wines and sought out her mother to explain that Pierce would call for her early to take her on a picnic in the country. But Rosalind had just that morning received word that the duke had landed in Portsmouth, a month earlier than expected, and would be making his way north to London to join her in a two or three days.