Unmasking the Duke's Mistress (Gentlemen of Disrepute #1)(47)

‘Do not dare condemn her!’ she cried and her breath was heavy and wheezing.

‘Mrs Tatton, please calm yourself. I make no condemnation of Arabella. I know she would not have gone there lightly.’

He caught hold of her, worried for her health, and steered her to the armchair.

She sat down heavily, sobbing and clutching her hands to her face. ‘I should have known it was such a place. But she told me it was a workshop where women sewed night and day to ready garments faster than anywhere else.’

He remembered Arabella facing him so defiantly that night in Mrs Silver’s, and the expression upon her face when she admitted that her mother did not know she was there.

‘She wished to spare your feelings, ma’am.’

Mrs Tatton nodded and, wrapping her arms around herself, began to rock. ‘She only went there to save me and the boy. After the robbery we had nothing. God knows we had little enough before, but after…’ She shook her head. ‘Arabella trailed the streets of London from dawn to dusk, looking for honest work. Day after day she walked those streets, walked until her feet were rubbed raw and bleeding, and her shoulders bowed with weariness, and the last of the doors had been shut in her face. She pawned the wedding ring from her finger, the cloak from her back, the shoes from her feet, to keep us from starving. And then there was nothing else left to sell.’

Except herself.

Dominic felt sick to the pit of his stomach. The thought of what she had suffered made him want to cry out against the injustice of it and drive his fist into the wall again and again and again, but he knew that he must control himself. Mrs Tatton was already distressed enough. He passed her his handkerchief and she took it with a murmur of gratitude.

‘You spoke of a robbery.’

He saw Mrs Tatton raise her head and look at him in surprise. ‘She did not tell you?’

‘She told me nothing.’

‘I do not understand…’

And neither did Dominic, but he was beginning to. ‘Arabella believed the worst of me. It must have been beyond humiliating for her to see me there that night.’ He did not tell the old woman sitting before him the full extent of how he had humiliated her daughter, taking her, unknown, masked, to slake his lust upon. The knowledge raked him with agony; he knew it would hurt Mrs Tatton all the more. ‘All she had left was her pride.’ He took her hands in his. ‘Tell me of the robbery, ma’am.’


She looked into his eyes, as if she were seeing him for the first time and was trying to take his measure. She looked and the minutes seemed to stretch, until at last she began to speak.

‘Villains broke down the door of our lodgings with a hammer and stripped the place bare. They took every last thing save our mattress from which they had already prised the little money we had hidden there, and that damnable gold locket you gave her. We had already sold most items of value through the years, to make ends meet. But she would not sell the locket for all that it pained her to look upon it.’ She looked at him steadily; the fury was gone and in its place was a terrible sadness and exhaustion.

‘You have made my daughter your mistress and my grandson your bastard, to be looked down upon and shunned by all society. Set Arabella and Archie and me free, Dominic. Give us enough money to set up elsewhere, to start afresh and at least pretend we are respectable. Please. I am begging you.’

‘I cannot do that, Mrs Tatton. I will not lose them again.’

‘Then damn you to perdition, Dominic Furneaux.’ Her complexion was puffy and grey, and her eyes swollen and red as she looked at him, yet there was about her the same dignity that he had seen in Arabella. ‘I have nothing more to say to you, your Grace. If you will be so kind as to leave this house…’ The hand with which she gestured to the door was shaking. ‘Please leave at once.’ She looked ill and trembling with passion. He dared not risk her health further.

Dominic rose from where he sat beside her on the sofa and did as she bid.



It was later than Arabella anticipated by the time that she and Archie returned to Curzon Street. Mrs Tatton had retired to bed and Dominic had not arrived.

The day wore on and when there continued to be no sign of Dominic Archie’s excitement gradually changed to something else.

‘Where is Dominic? Why does he not come, Mama?’ Archie looked up at her with disappointment in his eyes.

Arabella smoothed his hair into some semblance of tidiness. ‘Dominic is a very busy gentleman. I am sure that he will call upon us when he is able.’

‘But he said that he would call today.’

‘I know he did, little lamb. A very important matter must have arisen to prevent him.’ But she was angry at Dominic for dashing a small boy’s hopes, and angry at herself for trusting in him.

Archie climbed down from her knee and went off to play behind the curtain.

‘Mama, Mama!’ He came running up to her a minute later. ‘Look what I have found.’ In his hand he held a small scroll of paper tied with a red ribbon.

Arabella unfastened the ribbon and looked at the pen-and-ink coloured drawing on the paper before her. And she felt a wave of affection wash through her.

‘This is your own little horse drawn by Dominic.’ She smiled at Archie.

Archie’s eyes widened. ‘It is Charlie, Mama!’

‘Yes, I think it is.’ Arabella smiled, thinking that Dominic must have sent the drawing for Archie because he could not call.