Unmasking the Duke's Mistress (Gentlemen of Disrepute #1)(36)

The apothecary was clearing his throat and she felt her mother give her arm a little shake.

‘Arabella, you are wool-gathering.’ Mrs Tatton gave a false little laugh and slipped a hand to cover the white shining knuckles of Arabella’s hands where she was gripping so tightly to the counter. ‘I have come over a little unwell, my dear. Would you mind terribly if we were to come back for the soaps another day?’

Bless you, Mama. Bless your kindness, when her mother did not even know the full extent of the shock.

‘Not at all,’ Arabella said and then searched in her reticule for her purse to pay the apothecary. Her hands were trembling slightly in her haste to be gone and she set the money quickly down upon the counter, hoping that the apothecary would not notice. With the jar and bottle wrapped up in paper and tied with a handle of string, she took hold of Archie’s hand and followed her mother out of the shop.

‘Arabella, do not even think about that man. He is not worthy of it. From what I saw in there Dominic Furneaux is moving in all the right circles and most deservedly so I say. I wish him unhappy,’ Mrs Tatton said, pure venom in her voice. She tucked Arabella’s free hand into the crook of her arm. ‘Now, we will not let their words bother us.’

‘Indeed we will not,’ said Arabella resolutely but she felt numb and chilled to the marrow and her mind was still reeling from what she had heard. Dominic was to marry. It should not have been such a very great shock. He was a duke. It was his duty to beget an heir, but she felt sick at the thought. Sick to the pit of her stomach at the memories those words stirred.

Her mother hurried her along the street and she just wanted to get away from this place and those women.

She heard the shop door-bell ring behind them.

‘Excuse me, ma’am.’ The girl’s voice was tentative and as gentle and unassuming as her mother’s was harsh and arrogant. Arabella did not need to turn round to know that it was Lady Marianne who had come out behind them. Lady Misbourne’s daughter. The girl that Dominic was to marry.

Arabella did not want to look round. She wanted to keep on walking, to run away from this nightmare. But her mother had already stopped and turned.

Arabella had no choice.

‘Your little boy, he left this behind.’ There in the girl’s outstretched pink gloved hand was little wooden Charlie.

Lady Marianne was short and slender. A few fair curls that had escaped her pins peeped from the straw of her bonnet. She was dressed in an expensive pink walking dress and pelisse overloaded with lace and ribbon, chosen by Lady Misbourne Arabella guessed. But the outfit did little to detract from the girl’s beauty; her sweet face was stunning. Her skin had the smooth creamy opalescence of youth, her features were fine and neat, and her eyes were large and a deep dark brown.

‘Thank you,’ Arabella said with a smile that would not touch her eyes no matter how hard she tried to make it, and she took the little wooden horse from the girl’s hand.


‘Thank very much, miss,’ said Archie politely so that even given the strain of the situation, she was proud of him and his manners.

Lady Misbourne’s daughter smiled at Archie. ‘You are very welcome,’ she said to him kindly. ‘He looks as if he is a very special horse.’

‘Oh, he is,’ said Archie. ‘Gemmell made him for my birthday, and my mama took me to the park and let me and Charlie ride upon a real horse.’

‘That is quite enough, Archie. I am sure that the lady is too busy for your stories.’

‘Oh, not at all,’ said Lady Marianne shyly. ‘He is such a sweet boy.’

‘Marianne!’ Lady Misbourne appeared in the doorway and cast Arabella and her mother a haughty look of dislike.

‘Please excuse me,’ said Lady Marianne to Arabella and Mrs Tatton, ‘but I must not keep my mama waiting.’ She gave Archie a big grin and then she hurried back to where her mother’s face was growing sourer by the minute.

Arabella, her mother and Archie walked on along the street.

‘I liked that lady,’ said Archie and gave a little skip. ‘And so did Charlie. I think when I am a grown-up man I shall marry her.’ His innocent words drove the blade deeper, right up to the hilt.

‘Archie, stop talking such nonsense and walk smartly,’ she heard her mother say brusquely.

Arabella’s heart was throbbing. And this time she could not force herself to smile. She felt bitter and angry and unbelievably hurt. He had lied to her and betrayed her. He had bought her to keep as another one of his possessions. All of that and yet she was overwhelmed with such a terrible sense of grief, a raw keening agony that gouged at her heart.



The journey home seemed never ending. But, at last, she was able to climb from the coach outside the town house in Curzon Street and make her way in through the opened front door to the welcome of Gemmell, while her mother and Archie stayed hidden in the coach until it drove round to the stables.



Dominic sent a note to say that he could not visit that evening, and Arabella lay alone in bed that night, mulling over the dismal mess of the situation. Everything she had done had been for Archie, everything she was still doing was for her son. She had sold herself, swallowed the humiliation of becoming Dominic’s mistress. Worse than that, she had given herself to him in love, because even after everything she could not pretend that her heart was so divorced from him. But now she had to consider the implication of his impending marriage.