His Secret Mistress Read online

  The sedan chairs were out front, a footman left to guard them as if they were in London and not the safe haven of Maidenshop. Boys carrying their bags were shoving their way inside, big smiles on their faces. The men dismounted and tied up their horses to the post. Orion grumbled his thoughts. Bran ignored him and went inside. He had to duck to go under the door.

  “Come in, come in,” Andy called in his soft burr. The old Scotsman stood in the doorway of what he called his taproom where he kept his keg. He was about as wide as he was tall with white whiskers and a shaved pate. “Why, look at all of these birds. I’ll make you a pie that will sing itself with these,” he promised Ned. “Sit yourselves wherever you like. I’ll bring the food out.”

  A huge table had been set out in the middle of the room. Metal plates were stacked on one end along with knives and forks. Bran made himself useful handing them out. The air rang with the sounds of booted heels and chairs scraping the wood floor as they were pulled out.

  Andy had left to bring in the meat on the spit. In the taproom, Ned started pouring tankards of ale and had the lads distributing them. Mars had tucked into the tray of at least seven loaves of cooling bread. One didn’t stand on ceremony in The Garland. Once Evans and the Belvoir servants arrived, they began to eat and the room went quiet save for the sounds of hungry men enjoying themselves.

  Food helped restore Bran’s spirits. And, yes, he realized, being here with his friends was better than moping in London.

  Soon, everyone in London connected with engineering and architecture would learn that he hadn’t been awarded the commission. At least, not yet. They would wonder why and he and his small firm would be like the rook fledglings this morning—a target for gossip and speculation. His reputation was too new and he didn’t know what the damage would be.

  Mars began entertaining a group of lads with a story out of his youth when he’d been swimming and Ned had stolen his clothes as a jest. “Just as Mrs. Warbler and her daughters were out for an afternoon stroll.”

  “Did they see you, my lord?” the youngest boy asked.

  “All of me,” Mars said dramatically and the boys fell off the benches laughing. Even the servants had a giggle.

  Bran caught himself smiling, until he noticed the blue-and-white of Winderton livery at the door. Damn, it wasn’t even half past eight.

  He stood and walked over to greet Randall, Lucy’s butler and most trusted servant. “My sister has found me? Or were you just lucky?” Randall had once served with their colonel father in the Guard and was around Lucy’s age, which was twelve years older than Bran.

  “Just lucky, sir. Will you come with me, sir?”

  Bran ran a hand over the rough whiskers of his jaw. “I need to shave.”

  “She is frantic, sir.” A not uncommon situation where his sister was concerned and yet there was a hint of desperation in Randall’s tone.

  “Very well.” Bran waved to his friends. He noted that Fullerton and Sir Lionel were now back at their favorite table in the corner. The potted knight appeared to be sleeping, his head on his chest. Fullerton did not seem to mind since he was animatedly talking to himself.

  Outside, Orion stamped his displeasure as Bran mounted. “A few minutes more, my friend.” Randall had his own horse and the two rode off. Bran did not ask questions. Randall was extremely discreet when it came to Winderton affairs. Bran had learned how close-lipped back when he’d first arrived from India.

  The Winderton ancestral seat, Smythson, was a forty-five-minute ride from The Garland. It could have been faster except Bran refused to push his horse more.

  Smythson was a redbrick manse surrounded by gardens that had at one time been designed by no less a personage than Capability Brown. Lucy wasn’t much for gardens or management, and her husband’s death hadn’t made her rise to the situation. When Bran had first arrived as the duke’s guardian, the estate had been on the brink of ruin. The lawns had been ill kempt, the stables were a shambles, and his nephew’s schooling tuition had not been paid in years. He was amazed they took him back term after term.

  Bran had corrected the problems, using his money to do so because at the time Winderton didn’t have any. The old duke had been an exceedingly unwise gambler. Bran had learned there was no investment too ridiculous for his brother-in-law to throw money at, no horse too much of a long shot not to wager upon.

  Of course, Lucy had not wished for anyone to know the state of her affairs. What Bran had done for the estate and for his nephew was their secret, and, yes, when his nephew acted immature and entitled, Bran wished he was at liberty to tell him a few hard facts. His sister had always stopped him . . . but someday, he needed to sit the duke down and explain.

  As it was, Bran had successfully turned the estate around. It was profitable again and meeting its obligations. The gardens were well-groomed and the stables organized. The money generated by the estate was going into a fund that was earning Winderton 3 percent, Bran’s gift to his ward. However, Winderton was fast approaching his majority; the time would come for him to take over, ready or not for the responsibility.

  A groom waited to take Orion and the other horse. After dismounting, Randall led Bran inside and up the front stairs to the Dowager Duchess of Winderton’s private quarters.

  Lucy was still in her black dressing gown and lace cap and standing in the center of the room when Bran presented himself. She was a handsome woman for her age with gray streaks beginning in her dark hair. Her figure was plumper than when she was married. She blamed her eating as well as everything else on the need for comfort in her loneliness. Bran thought the extra stone or so of weight suited her. Both brother and sister had the Balfour “silver” eyes.

  She launched into him. “I sent my message demanding your immediate presence late yesterday morning. You should have been here last night.”

  “I was required to attend a meeting about the bridge—”

  “The bridge. The bridge,” she mocked. “I’m so tired of this bridge, especially when I need you here. Christopher needs you here.”

  “I saw Christopher in London a few weeks ago. He was fine.”

  “He is not fine now.” She began furious pacing, her arms gesturing wildly. “You must talk sense into him because he is not listening to me. And don’t tell me you hurried to Smythson because I know you went shooting with your fellows this morning. The Logical Men’s Society! An excuse for men to behave like boys, if you ask me.” Lucy was an important member of the Matrons of Maidenshop. “That you would choose them over your sister—” She made an exasperated sound before chiding, “And don’t deny you wouldn’t, because you did so today.”

  Bran couldn’t take her charging around him a second longer. He caught her, a hand on each arm, and guided her to the wing chair in front of the cold hearth. Sitting her, he knelt on one knee and said calmly, “The hunt was before dawn. I assumed you were asleep.”

  “I haven’t been able to sleep since Christopher said what he did. It was horrid, Brandon. Horrid.” Huge tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, reddening her nose. Lucy had never been a pretty crier.

  Bran pulled his handkerchief from a pocket and offered it to her. “Lucy, I am here now.” He kept his voice low and controlled. “What has His Grace done to set you in such a tizzy?”

  Lucy lowered the handkerchief and visibly struggled to regain control of herself. “He says . . . he is going to marry an actress.”

  For a second, Bran didn’t think he’d heard her correctly.

  At his silence, she elaborated, “He has met an actress and he vows that she is the woman he has been searching for. The one he must have. He claims his heart is set afire for her.”

  Bran rose, not trusting himself to speak immediately. He pulled a straight-backed chair over to his sister’s and sat. “An actress,” he repeated.

  Lucy nodded her head enthusiastically, causing the black ribbons in her cap to bounce.

  “You have been sending messengers and tracking me do
wn while I was trying to prepare for the most important meeting of my life because Christopher is taken with an actress?”

  “Not just ‘taken.’ He wants to make her his duchess.”

  She sounded so sincere.

  And suddenly all Bran could do was laugh. A good, hearty, well-isn’t-this-life laugh. Her offended stare brought him to his senses. “Lucy, he is almost one and twenty. Of course he wants an actress. We all do at one time or the other.”

  She shook her head. “Not a mere flirtation. He informed me he plans on marrying this woman.”

  “He won’t.”

  “He said he will.”

  “Lucy, he’s twenty. He says a good number of things he won’t carry out.”

  “You should have seen him, Brandon. It was as if he’d grown into a man as he was telling me all of this.”

  Bran gave an indifferent shrug. “He still has plenty of manly growing to do. An actress might help him with that.”

  Her brows snapped together. “I don’t want her near my son.”

  “Says every mother since the beginning of time.”

  “Stop patronizing me.” Lucy twisted the kerchief tight in her hands. “I know my son. He is smitten and he’ll do something foolish if we don’t chase this woman away. Worse, she is older than he is.”

  His nephew was sounding wiser and wiser as this conversation progressed. Bran feigned a frown to hide his grin. “Fine, I will talk to him.”

  “He won’t listen.” She spoke to Bran as if he was a child. “This woman has bewitched him.”

  “When did he meet her? In London, the duke said nothing to me about any woman.”

  “Yesterday.”

  The word stopped him.

  “Yesterday?” Bran shook his head. Mars and Thurlowe were not going to believe this story. “Lucy, he met her yesterday and he was bewitched on the spot? And you believe him? You have better common sense than that.”

  “You should hear him. He’s not himself.” Indignant color rose in her cheeks.

  “And how did he meet this actress yesterday?” Bran tried to hide his skepticism. He was not successful.

  “He came upon a troupe of actors on the road. Their wagon had broken down and he offered to help. He saw her and fell in love. He said it was that quick.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis. “He told me there isn’t anything he won’t do for her.”

  Until he beds her, Bran thought, but wisely refrained from voicing this observation. In truth, he was a bit relieved his nephew was not so wrapped around his mother’s finger. In fact, in London, Bran had suggested His Grace come for the Season. There were responsibilities to the title that the duke must understand and he wasn’t going to learn them doing his mother’s bidding in Maidenshop.

  Bran patted his sister’s hand. “All right. I will talk to him.”

  “He won’t listen. I’ve talked and talked. We must buy her off. Pay her to leave. That is the only way that we can keep him from her. Truly, Brandon, he acts possessed. He was humming before he left the house.”

  Bran wasn’t about to waste good money on an actress. “You are taking this too seriously. It is the normal course of things for young men to do. A rite of passage even.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel better? You aren’t.”

  “Very well,” Bran said patiently. “I was once in love with an actress. Heart and soul and you can see I survived the adventure.” Barely . . . but he didn’t need to say that to Lucy. If it hadn’t been for his actress, he wouldn’t have taken a position with the East India Company. He had literally exiled himself to be away from her.

  He also realized that he himself had been a bit naïve like Winderton. His actress had made a man of him. Certainly, she had set him on the course that had made him a very wealthy man. This one might do the same for his ward and nephew. “He will be all right, Your Grace. He will.”

  She bit her lower lip as if to stop it from trembling. “I thought Christopher was safe from that sort of woman here.”

  “And that is why you don’t want to let him go?”

  “His father died. He needs guidance.”

  “Thomas died almost four years ago,” Bran corrected quietly. “It is no longer an excuse to keep him tied to you. Young men must learn their own lessons and they often do it through trial and error. If you don’t let him go, then he’ll do things like making an actress his duchess.”

  “Those types of women are crass.”

  “They serve a purpose.”

  Lucy put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes, acting like a child herself. “I don’t want to hear it. I wish Thomas was alive. I wish nothing had changed.”

  “Nothing stays the same forever, Lucy.” And yet how many times over the past three years as he’d struggled to establish himself as an architect and engineer had he wished he was back in India where no one questioned his talent, his intelligence, or his connections.

  She reached out to place a hand on his arm. “Please, pay her off. Do I have the money?”

  “Enough. If you spend it here, then someplace else will suffer.”

  “Do it.”

  “Very well.”

  His sister released her breath with a sigh. “Thank you.”

  “Where is this actress located and does she have a name, or shall I just question every actress in the troupe?”

  “Kate Addison. Christopher set them up on Smythson property. He offered our land for their use. Can you believe it? They are camped close to the Cambridge Road.”

  His sister continued with directions and worries, but Bran had stopped listening. Kate Addison? Memories he’d thought safely tucked away and hemmed in by regrets flooded his mind.

  Just like that, everything came roaring back.

  How many Kate Addisons could there be in the world? Especially amongst actresses?

  Perhaps he misheard?

  Perhaps this was the culmination of all his frustrations over the past twenty-four hours? A universe preparing him to hear a name he’d prayed to be erased from his life—?

  “Brandon, are you listening to me?”

  “I . . . am,” he lied. And then, because he had to know, he said, “How much older is she than Winderton?”

  “Oh, lord, I don’t know. I haven’t asked many questions. All he had to do is say she was older and, well, what man wants a woman older than himself, I ask you? Last night, he suggested he would take her to Cotillion. Brandon, I don’t know what I will do if he walks into the dance tonight and fobs off this ill-mannered person on our friends.”

  “Not to worry, Lucy, I will stop it.” There was no patronizing indulgence in his voice now. If this actress was the Kate Addison, she would not gain a foothold into his family. That woman had upended his life—and he’d be damned if he let her do the same to Winderton.

  All thoughts of shaving or an easy slumber in his bed vanished. “The Cambridge Road?”

  “Yes. In fact, Christopher might be there. He left the house and has not returned—”

  She spoke to the air. Bran was already out the door.

  Chapter Two

  “I believe it would be better if the fox jumped out from behind a barrel or some such barrier instead of how you have him trolling around,” the Duke of Winderton said. He was a young Adonis. Dark brown hair, square-jawed, tall, gray-eyed, with a bit of weight around his middle . . . and an absolute confidence his opinion mattered in this world.

  Except it didn’t, not in this world where Kate Addison was proudly in charge.

  This was her troupe. In a sunny clearing surrounded by sheltering trees, she and her actors had marked the “stage” out on the ground for their rehearsal. Later, they would take the planks they carted around and turn them into a proper platform for performing. They’d put on this play she’d written based upon Aesop’s Fables countless times and had never once needed an outside opinion, ducal or otherwise.

  She was, however, pleased with their location. If the troupe’s wagon had to break down, the clearin
g was a good place. It was on a main road with a path cut through the trees that provided a natural attendance gate. This was also an obviously well-heeled area of the country.

  The troupe’s tents had been set up and their trunks with the tricks of their trade stacked neatly inside the larger, where the men would sleep on low cots. The women lived in a smaller tent set off to the side. Most troupes thought nothing of everyone sleeping in the same quarters, but Kate, who’d had years of experience sharing her private life with fellow actors, insisted on privacy for each of the sexes.

  Next to the main tent, a paddock had also been hastily built for their horse Melon, a nag of dubious heritage who worked long and hard for them. Kate always ensured that Melon received the best of care.

  Her acting company was not overlarge. Four men, two women, and Kate. Each had a story for why they had joined her. Nestor had been mocked for being Irish and given only the smallest parts in other troupes. He trusted that Kate would treat him better, and she did.

  Mary, who served as her wardrobe mistress and who was one of the finest actresses Kate had ever met, had been denied roles unless she’d responded to the lecherous desires of the men in her last troupe. She’d also been paid a pittance of what she’d earned. They had treated her like their whore. But if she had been a whore, she would have made more money.

  Then there was young Robbie whom Kate had saved from being beaten almost to death by a heavy-handed poorhouse warden.

  Jess had been a milkmaid with a winsome face and the golden blonde looks men admired. She had been turned out by her master when it was discovered she was with child. She’d lost the baby. Mary had discovered her working on the Manchester streets and brought her to Kate.

  John was the quietest of the group. He’d latched on to her troupe when she was just forming it and was as steady as they came.

  Finally, there was Silas, a former soldier and her most trusted confidant. Silas had been a member of Kate’s former company and had readily agreed to leave with her when she informed him she was striking out on her own. That was five years ago, and now here they were, heading to London. Well, heading to London if they could afford to have the wagon fixed.