Unmasking the Duke's Mistress (Gentlemen of Disrepute #1)(61)

‘What is a bastard, Mama?’

Mrs Tatton gasped with the shock of it, inhaled the mouthful of food she was chewing and started to choke and cough. By the time Arabella had dealt with her mother and the coughing fit was over, Archie had run off to play in the garden, and there was no need to answer his question. But Arabella knew she could not avoid it for ever, even if Archie was not illegitimate in the strict sense of the word.



Arabella stood that night at the window of the little room she shared with her son. Archie’s soft breathing sounded from the truckle bed behind her, regular and reassuring. She stared out at the darkening blue of the sky and the tiny pinpricks of stars that twinkled there. A crescent moon curved its sickle amongst the stars and she knew that soon the sky would wash with inky blackness. Her heart was heavy and aching as she stood there and watched the night progress. No matter how bad she had thought it when she believed Dominic to have left her all those years ago, nothing compared to how she felt now. A part of her had died. She wondered if she would ever feel alive again.

It did not matter what she did, she could not protect Archie from every hurt. She was all that stood between him and the world, and she thought of how she had deprived Archie of his father and Dominic of his son. And for the first time she wondered if she had done the right thing over Mr Smith’s blackmail. Maybe she should have gone to Dominic and told him of the man and his threats. Maybe Dominic would have dealt with Smith…and maybe Dominic would have been found dead in an alleyway with a knife between his ribs.

She could not risk his life because of her own weakness. She stood and watched the night and she knew that, were the choice laid before her again, she would make the very same decision. The knowledge did not make her feel any better. She dropped a kiss to Archie’s forehead and silently slipped from the room.




‘I paid you most handsomely, madam, and now I find that you have been less than discreet.’

Within the drawing room of her House of Rainbow Pleasures, in which they both were standing, Mrs Silver paled beneath the cold raze of Dominic’s gaze. ‘My girls and I took your money, your Grace, and we kept our side of the bargain. We have spoken not one word of Miss Noir to anyone else. Of that I give you my most solemn word.’

‘You cannot be so certain of your girls.’

‘I am certain enough, your grace.’ The dark coiffure of her hair made her skin look almost bloodless. ‘I trust them.’

He was thinking fast. Smith had to have recognised Arabella somehow. There were possibilities about which he did not want to think, and yet he knew that he had to.

‘Was there ever any trouble between Miss Noir and any of her…’ he forced himself to say the words, ‘…gentlemen customers?’

Mrs Silver looked at him with a strange expression. ‘There was no one else, your Grace.’

‘Think back very carefully. It is important. Maybe there was someone she made mention of as—’

‘No, your Grace,’ Mrs Silver interrupted him. ‘When I say that there was no one else, I mean exactly that. Arabella only came to me on the day of your visit. She had sold herself to no one before you. I thought you knew.’

Dominic was reeling. Arabella had not been a whore, until he had made her one. He felt the chill ripple right through him and with it the magnitude of the guilt of what he had done to her. No wonder Mrs Tatton had thought him a scoundrel. No wonder Arabella had balked at him making her his mistress. He had spent the last few weeks blaming it all on his father. But he knew now that he was as much to blame as the late duke.

It was even worse than he had thought. Mrs Tatton had been right; had he been a better man he would have helped Arabella without making his own selfish demands. He would have given her the money to leave the brothel and set her up without making her his mistress. And it should not have mattered if she was already a whore or not. But Dominic knew he was not a good man. He had wanted her…and he had taken her. And now he must live with the knowledge of the terrible thing he had done to her for the rest of his life.

And he had wondered why she had not told him of Archie!

Mrs Silver was staring at him and he knew he had to pull himself together. He composed his thoughts.

‘How did she come to be here?’

‘I saw her in a dressmaker’s shop when she was seeking employment. Times are lean; there is not much work to be had. She looked tired and down on her luck.’

She had been desperate.

Dominic remembered what Mrs Tatton had said of her selling her shoes. She had sold herself to him to save their son. And he, like the bastard he was, had bought her.

‘But, even so, she was a beautiful woman, and I knew she would be an asset to my rainbow. So I told her of the money she could earn and gave her my card. And she came here the very same evening as you.’

Hell! He clenched his teeth to stop the curse escaping. ‘And the dressmaker in whose shop you found her?’

‘Madame Boisseron.’

Dominic closed his eyes and bit down even harder. He wondered if he had done anything right by Arabella in all of this time.

‘She has a shop in—’

But Dominic was already on his way out to find the woman he had employed to dress Arabella as his mistress.



In Amersham Archie was suffering from another sore stomach.

‘This is the third time this week that the boy has been in this state, Arabella.’ Mrs Tatton’s face was creased with worry.