Mistress in the Making

Mistress in the Making

Lynne Silver

When genteel poverty strikes Lady Charlotte’s family, the innocent virgin puts herself on the auction block at Madame Bella’s school for mistresses in a desperate bid to provide a Season for her younger sisters. For her plan to succeed, she must show auction winner, Lucas Morgan, what a valuable prize he’s won. Morgan may have only bid on her to thwart his hated twin brother, but she’s going to prove she’s worth every pound.

Chapter One

Charlotte gave a final stroke to the glittering brooch before placing it into Mr. Smyth’s waiting palm. “You’ll send us the money soon?”

The man nodded. “Though I cannot guarantee the money will arrive before your cousin does.”

“Cousin?” Meggie and Anne asked in unison.

Charlotte leaned down to smile at her younger sisters. “Never you mind. Mr. Smyth will exchange Mama’s jewelry and we will head off to London as grand ladies.”

Meggie giggled. “Will we wear silk ball gowns?”

Elizabeth sailed down the front steps to the circular drive where they stood among the weeds in the fading summer sun. “No, Meg. You’re a child.
I
will wear the ball gowns and waltz in London.”

Mr. Smyth practically fell over as he swept a low and awkward bow. “Miss Elizabeth. I did not expect the delight of your company.”

“I didn’t expect to give it,” Elizabeth said in her haughtiest voice. She turned with blazing eyes. “Selling Mama’s only treasure? How dare you?”

Charlotte sighed and stepped toward her younger sister. “Lizzie. I’m sorry. A Season in London comes at a great expense. This is the only way. I believe we must leave before Cousin Phillip arrives.”

Understanding flickered briefly on Elizabeth’s beautiful face before a petulant frown reappeared. “Surely we can find another way without selling our only beautiful item.”

“None that I can think of,” Charlotte said. “Not if we wish to continue to eat.” She swallowed under the pressure of three pairs of eyes anxiously watching her as if waiting for her to magically wave her hand and make the events of the past month disappear. If only she could perform a miracle. Then their father would still be alive and a distant cousin wouldn’t be arriving to possibly oust them from their home.

“Mr. Smyth, if you hurry, you can make London by nightfall.” She turned to Meggie and Anne, her youngest sisters. “Run into the house and tell Netta that Mr. Smyth will not join us for dinner.”

When the girls were safely out of earshot and the dust had settled from Mr. Smyth’s horse, Charlotte turned to Lizzie. “Our cousin is on his way.” She looked up to meet Elizabeth’s sharp gaze.

“How soon?” Elizabeth asked. As the sister closest in age to Charlotte’s twenty years, she understood the possible impact of a stranger’s assumption of the estate.

“Therein lies our one comfort. Mr. Smyth is unsure when our newly found cousin will arrive. As a military man, they had to send letters to several different outposts. He was in Canada of all places.”

“I wonder what kind of man he is.” Elizabeth studied her fingernails for any imperfections.

“It doesn’t matter. We can’t risk staying and allowing him full control of our lives. He could marry us off to horrible men.”

“Or he could hide us in the house forever never allowing us to marry.” Elizabeth shuddered, clearly unable to think of a worse fate than living without admiration for her beauty.

Charlotte strode toward the house. “Mr. Smyth will get us the money and we’ll be off to London.”

Once in the house, she found her way to her father’s study. She did her best thinking in the shabby, cozy room, perhaps because of the years of practice when Father called her in to discuss finances, the tenants or any of the millions of details required in running the estate as if she were his helpmate instead of his eldest daughter.

After Mother died, she’d been so proud at age fourteen to be called in and spoken to as an adult. Little did she realize then Father had set her up in a role fraught with pitfalls. After six years, she was well used to bearing the burden of playing mother to her sisters. Now it seemed she’d have to play father too.

What did she know about inheritances and the laws of primogeniture? She walked to the arched window and looked out onto the rose garden. Or what used to be the garden. Now it was overrun with weeds and dead grass. Money had always been tight, even when Father was alive. They’d let their gardener go years before. Any efforts the sisters put into gardening was in the vegetable garden so they could augment their meals.

She hoped her newly found cousin had the capital to restore the estate. Otherwise, the poor man was gaining a burdensome inheritance.

She leaned her forehead against the cool glass, noting the yellow, orange and fiery-red leaves dancing to the ground from the towering trees outside. A few months. That was all the time she had to scrape enough money to get Elizabeth to London. With Elizabeth’s beauty she’d make a grand match.

Charlotte would ensure it was to a kindly gentleman who would allow his new wife’s sisters a room in his home. She stepped back and sank into the comforting embrace of the desk chair. It was a sound plan with everything riding on the sale of Mama’s brooch. Without it, she’d never find enough coin to take Elizabeth to London and purchase the ball gowns and other fripperies required to debut in style.

“Lady Charlotte?” Netta, their last remaining servant, who acted more the role of doting grandmother than housekeeper, peered around the study door. “Are you receiving visitors?”

She sat up straight. Visitors? No one had been up to call at the estate since Father’s death. Apparently everyone in the village knew of their dire straits and that it was only a matter of time before the Clifton Park sisters left the area.

“Who has come to call?”

Netta stepped into the doorway, pushing the heavy wood in front of her. “A Mrs. Bella.”

Charlotte craned her neck to see a woman in a pale-blue gown standing in the shadows behind Netta. “I’m receiving. Please send her in.”

“Will you require tea?” Netta asked, keeping up the pretense they could afford to serve a guest with the elegance they wished.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Mrs. Bella declared and pushed past Netta to saunter into the room. “I won’t be staying long.”

“Oh?” Charlotte couldn’t think of what else to say. She’d never seen a lady of Mrs. Bella’s ilk before, except in her imaginings of duchesses at Almacks.

“I am only here to share a business proposition, and then I will be off. If I hurry, I can be back in London by midnight.” Her guest settled herself into the least-shabby chair facing the desk and appraised Charlotte with a critical eye.

She shifted in her chair, feeling exposed and underdressed near the elegant creature. “What do you mean by ‘business proposition’? I am no businesswoman.”

Mrs. Bella smiled. “Ah, but I am, and you have a commodity I am after.”

She racked her brains to think of anything valuable they had left. Nothing came to mind. Father sold off nearly everything not entailed the year after mother’s death. “What do I have that you desire?”

“Before I share, why don’t I tell you a little about my business?”

“Please do.” She scooted forward on the chair.

“I run a school of sorts.”

“A school?” Excitement built a tiny fire in her stomach. Perhaps this was the answer to her prayers. She could enroll Meggie and Ann at the woman’s school while she and Elizabeth took London by storm. “We couldn’t pay much in tuition, but my sisters are hard workers,” she said eagerly.

Mrs. Bella smiled almost gently. “As I said, it’s a school of sorts. While I do educate young women, it is not in the usual way or the expected curriculum.”

“I don’t understand.”

Mrs. Bella sighed. “No, of course you don’t. I had hoped to have this conversation with your father, the Baron, but as I understand from the villagers, he is recently deceased?”

She nodded stiffly. “One month ago yesterday.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Another stiff nod. Would it ever get easier to acknowledge her grief without bursting into sobs? To hide her pain, she focused on Mrs. Bella’s overly large reticule balanced on the wide skirts of her silky, blue dress.

“Shall I explain?”

“Please do.”

“I’m not Mrs. Bella. Most men in London know me as
Madame
Bella.”

Charlotte stood and stepped around her father’s desk. “Thank you for your time. I fear I remember an appointment I must attend.” Fury burned in her chest. How dare a woman of ill repute waltz into her home as if she’d be welcome?

Mrs., no, Madame Bella remained seated. “Please hear me out. I know this is a difficult time, and sometimes certain rules and beliefs we once maintained become a luxury when life throws hurdles in our path.”

Charlotte froze. Madame Bella had the right of it. Already, she and her sisters had ceased sitting in the main dining room, electing to join Netta in the kitchen for a cozy meal
en famille
. What more would they have to give up once their cousin arrived to take over the household? She turned slowly and faced the older beautiful woman. “I’m listening.”

“My school teaches young women of fine families who’ve fallen on hard times to earn a living.”

“Doing what? Becoming whores?” Charlotte asked, suspicious.

“As mistresses to the wealthiest men of elevated titles,” Madame said smoothly.

“Is there a difference?”

Madame smiled and smoothed her elegant skirt, picking at an invisible piece of lint. “You are very naïve, are you not?”

Charlotte crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t believe so, no.”

“You are if you think there is such a difference between a mistress and a wife.”

She opened her mouth to protest every difference between the two, but Madame spoke over her objections.

“The difference is that a mistress earns a living and can change protectors. A wife is not compensated for her household drudgery, nor can she change lovers at ease. If her husband is a brute, the law demands she stays with him until death. A mistress can find a new lover.”

Charlotte stepped back to the desk chair, trailing a finger along the fading wood surface of the desk. Madame made an excellent point. She struggled to wrap her brain around an idea that warred with every notion of decency she’d been taught since birth. “What is your role?” she asked Madame Bella.

The woman smiled, seeing she had made inroads into changing Charlotte’s view. “Men want ladies in the ballroom and whores in the bedroom. The girls I train have been taught the lady role already. I teach them bedroom skills. How to pleasure a man…”

Charlotte held up an icy hand then pressed it to a hot cheek.

“I give a small fee to the families who loan me their daughters and in return, I expect the girl to share a percentage of her monthly stipend with me. I negotiate the contract between gentleman and mistress to ensure it is fair and generous to both parties.

“If I agree to attend your school, how long before my sisters receive their stipend and before I am partnered with a man?” A wave of desperation and shame rolled through her that she was even considering this wild plan.

“But it is not you I want,” Madame said. “It is your sister, the beautiful one.”

Charlotte leapt to her feet and planted her palms on the table. “No! Absolutely not. My sister, Elizabeth, is to travel to London and make a great match. If anyone goes with you, it will be me.”

“You are too old,” Madame said.

“I’m twenty.”

“Too old.”

She started to argue her viability for the position, but stopped, realizing the absurdity of it. She wasn’t actually considering becoming a whore, was she? Despite Madame’s prettily wrapped words, a mistress was a whore and could never be received in decent company again. She’d never marry. Never have a family of her own. No, Mr. Smyth would come through with the money. The brooch had to be worth something.

“I’m afraid I will have to reject your generous offer. Should I become a mistress, my sisters would be ruined,” she said, turning to look out the window where her two youngest sisters strolled with buckets in hand, no doubt to hunt for wild edible berries.

Madame Bella rose and placed a sheath of parchment on the desk. “Have you ever been to London before?”

She shook her head.

“Then we could hide your identity. No one in London would connect you with your sisters when they make their debuts. Seasons in London are very costly. Should you change your mind, my address is within.” She turned, showing a hint of lacy petticoat and exited, brushing up against Mr. Smyth who was hovering in the doorway.

Charlotte stepped quickly toward him. “Mr. Smyth, what are you doing back so soon?” Her heart hammered. Something had gone wrong. There was no other explanation.

Smyth waited for Madame Bella to pass and then stepped into the study, holding something tightly in his fist. They both stared down as he slowly opened his fingers to reveal glittering shards almost dustlike.

“Is that…?”

He nodded gravely. “I stopped at The Crow’s Caw for ale before heading into the city. The brooch tumbled out when I went to pay. It shattered, Lady Charlotte. I’m so sorry. It was paste.”

Three months later

“Tell me again why we’re back in London, this infernal dirty rat hole.”

Lucas leaned on the ship’s railing, staring at the teeming docks below. “Quit your grousing, Bellamy. You know why we’re here.”