Claire Thornton - The Defiant Mistress

‘That’s it?’

‘What else would you prefer to do?’ His eyes glittered in the lantern light.

Athena clutched defensively at her bodice and realised she was still unlaced. ‘I can’t walk into the embassy like this!’ she gasped.

‘I could carry you in,’ he offered.

‘Certainly not!’ She bit her lip as she considered her options. ‘You may do me up,’ she decided, ‘but mind you touch nothing but the points and my bodice!’

‘You want me to do the work of a lady’s maid?’ he said. ‘For what hire?’

‘Nothing. You shouldn’t have undone me in the first place.’

‘Turn around,’ he commanded.

She did so, looking warily over her shoulder to see what he would do.

‘So suspicious,’ he mocked her.

‘No more than you.’ She held her breath as he pulled on the laces. ‘Not too tight. The bone is broken,’ she reminded him.

She wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or disappointed that he did exactly as she’d asked. Despite everything, some small part of her still yearned for his caresses.

‘There. You may return to the embassy as respectably dressed as you left it,’ he said.

‘What did he do to you?’ Athena’s maid demanded the instant she entered her room.

‘Nothing.’ Athena had known there was little chance her interlude with Gabriel would go unnoticed, at least by Martha. Her maid had been given a pallet bed in Athena’s chamber.

Martha sniffed disbelievingly. ‘Richard saw him carry you off the steps. He said you didn’t even struggle.’

Richard was the manservant Rachel Beresford had brought with her from England. Martha hadn’t wanted to come to Venice, but she’d been partially consoled for the inconvenience of the trip by the friendship she’d struck up with Richard.

‘Did he?’ Athena sat down on a stool and brushed her hair wearily back from her face. It was hard to dredge up answers to satisfy Martha when she had so many unanswered questions of her own whirling in her mind.

‘I didn’t struggle because there was no point,’ she said. ‘Do you suppose anyone in this place would gainsay Lord Halross?’

‘No,’ Martha admitted grudgingly. ‘He has them all in thrall. And he’s in better standing with the Venetians than the Ambassador, by what I hear. Why did he take you? What did he do to you? Did he hurt you?’

‘To talk. No, he didn’t hurt me.’

‘Talk!’ Martha snorted in disbelief. ‘How do you know him? You never mentioned him before.’

The stool was close to the wall. Athena leant back gratefully. ‘I knew him before I was married,’ she said.

‘Were you his mistress?’ Martha sounded shocked.

‘No!’ Athena lifted her head in indignation. ‘I was to marry him.’

‘Marry him?’ Martha’s mouth fell open. ‘Why didn’t you?’

‘We had a small misunderstanding several years ago. Lord Halross wanted to clear it up this evening, that’s all,’ said Athena, trying to conclude the conversation.

‘It’s not all, by a long shot,’ Martha said grimly. ‘Richard wasn’t the only one who saw the Marquis carry you off. Sir Walter’s valet also saw you. By tomorrow morning everyone in the embassy will be sure Lord Halross has set you up as his mistress.’

An inn, Brussels

‘There is one other matter, your Grace,’ said Philpott, Gentleman of the Privy Purse to the Duke of Kilverdale.

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