Maggie Robinson - Mistress by Mistake

“Good God. She was drugged, Jamie. I watched you dose her myself. You can’t count on anything she said or did.”

“It was just honey and brandy. I knew she needed to sleep, and she did. She’s sorry, Bay, truly sorry for causing you both such trouble. It’s as if she was under some kind of spell and now she’s snapped out of it.”

“You’re the one who’s under a spell, man!” Bay returned to pacing the room, running his hand through his hair every seventh step. Charlotte counted-he was as regular as a metronome.

“You’re right,” Dixfield said. “And you of all people know what it’s like. You’ve moved on, Bay, and found your happiness. Don’t deny me mine.”

Bay snorted in disgust. He pulled open a French door and slammed it shut. Charlotte watched him lope down the green lawn toward the beach, leaving her alone with the love-struck doctor.

“I know Anne just sees me as a port in the storm,” he said softly. “But I have hope she’ll come to care for me, even love me. She-she was very responsive. Physically.” His cheeks were crimson but he continued the unwanted confession. “She’s had a hard life. Her only true peace was her brief time with Bay. Not even six months. Then she played her games. I know she hurt Bay terribly, but I swear she won’t bother you again.”

Charlotte’s mouth was dry. “How can you know that?”

“Because I mean to get her with child, children if we’re so lucky, and she’ll be too busy to think about the past. I’ve waited for her more than half my life.”

Apart from her obvious beauty, Charlotte could see no reason why any man should fall in love with Anne Whitley. Yet these two old friends had, and for most of two decades. Perhaps her judgment was clouded as well, and they knew a different Anne, one who was not shrill and dangerous. “I can’t trust her,” Charlotte said at last. “Especially not now.”

“Then convince Bay to lend me the blunt so we can go to Scotland. We’ll marry at Gretna Green on the way up. Once my practice here sells, I can pay him back.”

“I don’t think his reservation is about the money. Bay’s the most generous man I know. Don’t you see? You’re his best friend. He doesn’t want Anne to use you.”

Dixfield smiled. “I want to be used, Charlotte. Sad, isn’t it? Here I’ve got looks and skill-no false modesty for me. I know my worth-but all I want is that madwoman in my house. She’s all I ever wanted. I thought my heart would turn black and curdle with jealousy when Bay married her. I was glad when her husband came back from the dead-glad that my friend couldn’t have her either. You’re the only person I’ve ever told that to.”

Charlotte felt sympathy for the man, but Anne’s problems surely were too complicated to be solved by honey and brandy and one afternoon in bed with Jamie Dixfield. From the state of his clothing he hadn’t even bothered to get undressed. Charlotte scrubbed her mind of the unwelcome images.

“I will talk to him, but I can’t promise anything.”

Dixfield rose. “Thank you. I’m going to bring Anne back home to her parents. It’s not proper that she stay with me.”

Oh, God. A fist of fear clutched her heart. Anne would come after them again, and next time she might be successful. Bay’s child would be at risk as long as Anne was not confined. Charlotte stumbled over her good-byes and stared at the deceptively calm sea. She had to do something-something-but she couldn’t think what.

He’d walked on the shingle until he reached the tumble of unclimbable cliffs, then turned back into the wind to head for home. Still too enervated to go back to the house, Bay perched on a sun-soaked rock, surveying the abandoned seduction site. The tent poles had collapsed, the basket of food overturned and picked clean by swooping gulls. A long dark stain of wine had dried on the ruined carpet.

And then there was the chamber pot, glistening white in the afternoon light. Bay’s lips twitched, remembering. But the seriousness of his situation brought a quick halt to his amusement. Jamie was as mad as Anne if he thought to marry her and run off to Scotland. What Anne’s parents would think was anyone’s guess. Life as a doctor’s wife was quite a come-down from life as a viscountess, but nevertheless an improvement over being an inmate in an asylum, no matter how humane.

At the heart of it, he couldn’t imagine Anne turning from him to Jamie in less than twenty-four hours. It smacked of the kind of desperation only possible if one was completely unbalanced. How could Jamie settle for a wife like that, far from the home he grew up in, away from his elderly father and friends? Both he and Anne were tethered to their obsessions.

Bay knew what it was like to crave Anne’s touch. In losing her he had lost years of his life, put himself at needless risk, frozen his heart to new possibilities. Charlie had thawed it with the heat of her tongue and body. Now he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

And he had left her alone at the house to sort out his mess. He was a craven fool.

The glass door to the back parlor was still open as he left it. His instinct had been to slam it when he stormed out of the room earlier, but his better self had prevailed. Charlie sat at the tea table, its starched linen cloth wafting in the light breeze. A dried-up sandwich sat untouched on her gilt-edged plate.

“I’m sorry,” he offered before she could say anything. “I shouldn’t have run away and left you with Jamie. I was just so-so-flummoxed.”

“Bay, I want to go home. To Little Hyssop. It’s almost time anyway.”

He couldn’t have heard her correctly. He reached for a hand that was fisted tightly in her lap, but she clutched the fold of her dress. “Why?”

“Jamie says he’s taking Anne back to the Bucklands until we get all this sorted. I think you should give him the money and send them away. Far away. Until you do, I just can’t stay here.”

“I’ll protect you, I swear. Frazier and I were in the process of hiring some men from the village to patrol the grounds round-the-clock.”

“Too late.” Her blue eyes were bright with tears. He cursed himself for leaving her by herself to worry and placing her in danger. Anne could be walking up the drive right now, armed with one of Jamie’s bedpans to return the favor.

He didn’t want her to leave. He didn’t even want her as far away as the next room. But it was clear from her stricken expression she was scared half to death. “You’re right. I’ll send Frazier with you. And Kitty, I suppose.”

“Frazier! Is he fit enough?”

“Angus Frazier’s a tough old bird. Believe me, he’s marched miles with worse. It’s just a superficial wound. I think he wears the sling to garner sympathy from his bride-to-be.”

Her smile was wobbly. “You must think I’m an awful coward.”

“No, my love, you are a sensible, respectable woman, as you’ve reminded me time and time again. And anyone with the grit to use a chamber pot as a weapon is a force to be reckoned with. You are the bravest woman I know.”

“She could have shot you. When the gun went off-” She swallowed back a sob.

He pulled her up against him quickly, the china on the tea table clattering. Yes, she had fainted last night, but the enormity of everything was finally hitting her in all its grim glory. He’d seen some of his troops go through stages such as this-functioning because they had to, then suddenly going to pieces. Bay couldn’t bear to see her hurt or uncertain. He would deal with Jamie and Anne, then claim Charlie at last.

“Hush, hush,” he whispered into her temple as she wept. “It will be all right. Everything will be all right. I’ll see to it, and then I’ll come for you. You can leave tonight, as soon as we can get you packed up. Frazier will think he’s on holiday, two pretty girls to ride with. Let me go talk to my coachman. He’s an old army man, too-used to moving on short notice.” He murmured comforting nonsense as she slowly stilled in his arms. Whatever it took to calm her fears, he was prepared to do. He acknowledged his own fears were elevated as well. Until he saw Anne for himself, he would doubt any solution Jamie proposed.

He wouldn’t be separated from Charlie forever, just long enough for him to find a permanent solution to the problem of Anne Whitley. Charlie would never have reason to worry about anything ever again, save what to order for dinner or what color to repaint the parlor. An idea was even now beginning to form, taking amorphous hold on his imagination, but he wouldn’t speak of it until he could explore it further. In the meantime, the woman in his embrace needed kissing in the very worst way, something he was eminently qualified to do.

From the corner of the coach, Charlotte had observed the blushes and the giggles, the secret glances, the “accidental” touches of her companions as the carriage rolled through the countryside bounce after bounce. She definitely felt like a fifth wheel as Angus Frazier and his Kitty were thick in the throes of their love affair. She couldn’t begrudge them their euphoria; if things had been different, she would be similarly enraptured by Bay. It was in fact amusing to see the gruff Frazier as besotted as a schoolboy with the tiny maid. Charlotte was quite looking forward to their wedding as well as her own.

But right now she had a more pressing problem than wedding arrangements. She simply didn’t know where she was going to put Mr. Frazier and Kitty when they got to her little cottage. It was not as though she had servants’ quarters, or even the need for servants. The upstairs rooms were crammed to the ceiling with Deborah’s spoils from her years as a courtesan. Kitty would just have to share Charlotte’s bed, and Mr. Frazier was doomed to sleep on the lumpy sofa, poor man. Bay would not hear of them returning with the coachman and the carriage once she was safely back in Little Hyssop. She was to have the security of Angus Frazier’s protection until Bay decided otherwise.