“Yes.”
“Even more handsome than Fred Larkin?”
Beatrice laughed.Fred Larkin was a local farmer, a broad-shouldered boy of twenty, and hewashandsome.But far from the most handsome man that Beatrice had ever seen.Clearly her sister didn’t agree.
“I always knew you fancied Fred.”
Sally blushed.“I am not saying—”
“There is no need to deny it.I don’t think you wanton.”
Her little sister had spent those first twelve years of her life under the roof of her maternal grandmother, a religious woman who had rued her granddaughter’s illegitimate birth and blamed her for it.Even though it had been years since her grandparents had died and she had come to live at Parkhorne Hall—nominally as Beatrice’s lady’s maid—Sally still had some of the reserve drubbed into her by these teachings.
“Beatrice!”
Poor Sally.She couldn’t even stand the sound of the word “wanton.”
“As I said, you needn’t worry.I am sure I will enjoy being his mistress for two weeks.”
“That seems unlikely, even if he is so handsome.If he is not kind…”
“Fred is always kind.I will give you that.”
“Beatrice,” she exclaimed again.“Be serious.”
“I have explained it to you, Sal.It isn’t the same for me as it would be for you.I’ve been with men before.I’ve told you that.”
In the drawing room, Beatrice had called herself ruined.And indeed, she was.She had been caughtin flagranteat the age of seventeen with the local nobleman’s son.The tale itself was as true as it was hackneyed.Lord Gilchrist had been charming and urbane and had poured honey in her ear about their eventual marriage.She had been young and rebellious and out of her mind for him and so had let him under her skirts.When his father caught them on his grounds, he had toldherfather and refused to have his son marry her.Everyone in their town knew she was ruined—and the status of her paramour’s family had ensured that she could never go to London or elsewhere to marry, either.No respectable man would marry a girl who had thus sullied herself.
For six months, Beatrice had thought her life was over.In those six months afterwards, she had cried herself to sleep every night.
But then her father had died, of the disease that had been slowly killing him for years.She and her mother and her brothers were finally out from under his thumb.And the bastards, her siblings, that he had sprinkled around the town, Sally and Malcolm and Severn and Philip, they had come to Parkhorne Hall.
And her mother, her dear, beloved mother, who had never been ashamed of her, who had always loved her through it all, gave her the freedom her father had long denied her.
Beatrice had always loved the farm, the grounds, the water and wood of Parkhorne.And once her father was dead, she had become its steward.She rode in the fields and went to town for market and made the place turn a profit for the first time in years.She put everything into the land.
The people in her town, most of whom had no pretensions to gentility, put the scandal aside.They saw her only now for what she had become.What she had made herself into.
And, discreetly, for years now, she had taken lovers.
She had learned that the love she thought she had felt for Lord Gilchrist had been nothing but a common lust.
Her town was small and not many men came through it who caught her fancy.Nevertheless, since her own misadventure with Lord Gilchrist, at least one or two visiting men a year had been worth her while.
Somehow, she had found herself with what so few women in England had: freedom, pleasure, enough money, and all without losing her beloved family.She had everything.
Until, as usual, her father had ruined it all.
“I know, Bea.But this is different.”
Her sister looked at her with that steady gaze which, for all its innocence, also contained a resilient, steely quality.When Beatrice had first seen that glint in Sally’s eye, she had known they would be more than sisters—they would be friends.
“You’re right,” she said quietly.“I know it is.But I have no choice.Once I settle the debt, we’ll have everything we need.With the way these men pay their mistresses, it will be three or four years at most.And with Parkhorne Hall turning the profit it does now, the boys will have everything they need in the meantime.”
She had demanded an absurd five hundred pounds for the two weeks with Lord Leith.It was only a fraction of what she needed, but as soon as she had the money, she would advance it to her creditor as a beginning.
Beatrice still couldn’t believe her daring.That she was here.And that she had demanded of Lord Montaigne an introduction to the man whose mistresses became famous, wealthy women: Lord Leith.
