Once a Mistress Read online

Come forth in the light of things.

  Let Nature be your teacher.

  William Wordsworth, 1770—1850

  Swanslea Park

  Northamptonshire

  “Tallyho!”

  Wren Stafford heard the distinctive cry of the foxhunt and picked up her pace. Lengthening her strides, she hurried along the gamekeeper’s path at the edge of the parkland surrounding the dowager cottage. The hunters were getting closer. The master of the hunt’s horn had grown louder and the baying of the hounds more insistent. “Now you’ve done it, Margo,” she muttered, dropping to her knees as she reached her latest subject’s favorite hiding place. “They’ve picked up your scent.”

  Wren tugged her knapsack from around her neck and stretched out on the ground, reaching as far into the earthen den as she could. “You can’t stay here. Your cozy little hole in the ground is too shallow. They’ll send the terriers in to roust you out and then…” Wren clamped her jaw shut and closed her eyes. The rest of her statement didn’t bear thinking of. “This isn’t a game. Come here, Margo. Please.”

  The ground vibrated beneath her as she wriggled further into the den. She touched the fox’s whiskers with the tips of her fingers. “I’ve got kippers in my haversack. Just for you. All you have to do is come get them…” A note of desperation crept into her voice. The hunters were covering the parkland at an alarming rate. If Margo didn’t come out soon, there would be no way she could save her.

  “Come on, Margo.” Wren’s voice cracked and she swallowed hard—once, then twice more—before she managed to continue. “Be a good girl, Margo. Come on…” She wiggled her fingers. “Smell the kippers… That’s right.” Wren nearly shouted with relief as the young vixen licked her hand.

  Shoving herself out of the opening of the den, Wren fumbled for the canvas flap of her haversack, reached inside it, and found one of the kippers, left over from breakfast, that she’d tucked into a square of oiled cloth. She shuddered at the thought that she was to blame for Margo’s current situation. When she was working, Wren normally stayed in the cottage with her menagerie of subjects, but George had asked her to stay in the main house while he was traveling and Wren had agreed. She’d left Margo sleeping on the sofa in the sitting room when she’d finished work last evening and had let her out when she’d returned to the cottage this morning. The notion that the hunters might be encroaching on Swanslea parkland hadn’t occurred to Wren.

  Until she heard the horn.

  The moment she’d heard the horn and the hounds, she remembered Margo was outside exploring and had gone in search of her. Wren owed the fact that she had the kippers to sheer luck. She’d turned back to the kitchen on her way out the door this morning and grabbed a few leftovers as a treat for the fox, wrapping them in oilskin paper and shoving them in her canvas bag as she left the main house.

  Wren unwrapped one of the kippers and sat back on her heels, fish in hand. She pulled the knapsack closer to her and opened the flap before offering the kipper to the fox. Margo sniffed the air, then darted forward to grab the treat. Wren took advantage of her opportunity. She dropped the fish onto the ground and grabbed hold of Margo as the fox devoured the treat. Keeping a firm grip on the blue leather collar hidden among the soft red fur on the scruff of Margo’s neck, Wren carefully tucked the vixen inside the canvas bag and buttoned the flap. Looping the strap over her head, Wren pushed herself to her feet, held the bag close against her body, and took off at a run.

  They weren’t supposed to hunt here. The land surrounding Swanslea Park was prime hunting land but George had asked the master of the hunt to refrain from hunting on it while Wren was in residence. And the master of the hunt had honored the agreement for the three years she had lived in the dowager cottage. But George was dead and the news of his death had spread like wildfire across the county. Even though he’d only been dead a fortnight and she remained in residence, hunting on the fields and in the forests of Swanslea Park had resumed three days after the marquess of Templeston was reported drowned in Ireland.

  And the hunting played havoc with her work. Besides endangering the life of one of her prized subjects, the hounds and the men and women riding to them upset her other subjects. Wren glanced back over her shoulder and caught sight of the lead hounds. She was in good health, but she knew she couldn’t outrun them—especially not while carrying Margo. She would never make it to the safety of the cottage. But if she was lucky she could make it to the old English oak tree that grew at the end of the drive. Its branches were low enough for her to reach and would be easy to climb.

  Drew rode up the drive to find the parkland surrounding Swanslea House in chaos. From the looks of it, the Trevingshire—the local hunt—was in full progress. A pack of fifty or so hounds surrounded the base of the ancient oak tree that grew at the end of the drive leading to the dowager cottage. Massive limbs spread out from the oak, dipping low enough in places to make for ideal climbing. As he watched, several of the dogs leaped onto the lowest branch, braced their paws against the trunk, looked up, and began baying. The hounds had obviously found their prey, the fox having run up the branches of the oak in a bid to escape them.

  He hadn’t visited his mother’s family home in years, but Drew recalled his father mentioning several years ago that the course taken by the Trevingshire hunt was disrupting several projects he was working on at Swanslea and that he had asked the master of the hunt to refrain from crossing the parkland. Either the master of the hunt had refused to honor the marquess’s request or he assumed the request had died with the man, because the hunt had returned to Swanslea Park.

  His parents had ridden with the Trevingshire hunt and had allowed him to be blooded at the age of eleven, but Drew never cared for the sport. He enjoyed riding, but not to the hounds. He loved horses but could find no sport in tearing up the countryside in pursuit of a fox or in endangering the lives of the mounts and their riders while doing so. And he wasn’t about to watch the hounds, which outnumbered the fox fifty to one, tear the animal apart on his property.

  Foxes were nuisances, but Drew found the hunt crowd to be a bigger nuisance. He had little respect for the members of his class who apparently held his father in such low esteem that they disregarded his wishes and hunted on his land within days of his death. Swanslea House was a house of mourning and now that he had arrived to take up temporary residence, the Trevingshire hunt would have to move elsewhere.

  Drew hurried toward the hounds circling the huge oak tree. The field of riders had caught up to the pack and twenty or so horses galloped toward him at breakneck speed. Drew hoped to reach the big oak before the other riders and to intercept the master of the hunt, but he arrived moments too late. Several of the horsemen had gathered around the base of the tree and were looking up through the branches. “Be still, Margo! Stop wiggling. Get down, you stupid hound! Go home! Leave us alone!” A woman’s voice— low, husky-toned, and filled with exasperation—carried from the branches above. The sound of it sent a tingle of awareness through Drew’s body.

  “Jolly good show, eh?” one of the men commented, reaching over to prod his companion with the tip of his riding crop.

  The other man laughingly agreed. “Best prize these hounds have cornered in ages.”

  “Call them off,” the voice from above ordered. “Take your hounds and go. You’re trespassing.”

  The first man chuckled. “We could say the same thing about you.”

  “I live here,” she said. “And I happen to know that the marquess refused to allow hunting on Swanslea Park.”

  “Well,” drawled the first man, “you happen to be mistaken. As you can see, we’re surrounded by horses and hounds and riders all in their pinks and that means that not only is the hunt allowed on Swanslea Park, but that it’s definitely in progress. Of course, that’s just our opinion.”

  His companion chuckled. “Besides, the marquess of Templeston is dead.”

  “The old one is,” Drew said, maneuvering his horse close en
ough to the others to be heard above the baying of the hounds. “The new one is not.”

  The men turned in unison and one of them recognized him. “I say—Ramsey!” He stared at Drew and noticed his mourning band. “I mean Templeston. I’m Harris. Remember? Dormand and I”—he nodded toward his companion—“were at Eton and Cambridge with you and your friend St. Jacque. How is St. Jacque? Is he still in Town? Haven’t seen him in ages. Not since Nappy was sent into exile.”

  “Julian was wounded at Waterloo,” Drew replied.

  “I remember now,” Harris said. “I heard you earned a medal of some sort saving him. Have to show it to us sometime. St. Jacque was always a lucky fellow.”

  “His luck ran out,” Drew corrected. “He didn’t recover from his wounds.”

  “Don’t remember hearing about that,” Harris told him. “Or reading it in the paper.”

  “Why should you remember?” Drew asked, an edge of bitter cynicism coloring his words. “The war’s been over a long time. St. Jacque has had the misfortune to take an inordinate amount of time to die. The fact that he’s wasted away from wounds suffered in battle isn’t the sort of thing a once strong, proud, and handsome young soldier wants his friends and schoolmates from the ton to read about in the morning paper. His death isn’t going to be quick or glorious. It’s ugly and painful and it’s already taken years.”

  “Not like your father, eh?” Dormand chimed in. “Now, that’s the way to go. On a yacht in a storm and with one of your wenches for companionship.”

  An audible gasp drifted down from the oak leaves above.

  Dormand grinned, continuing to make light of the situation. “And speaking of your father’s wenches, we seem to have treed one.”

  “What do you think, old man?” Harris pointed at the branches above them. “We were after the fox’s brush, but we’ll take what brush we can get, eh?”

  Drew looked up. Several leafy boughs obscured his view of her face and her upper torso, but he was treated to a fine view of her rounded derriere and her long, slim legs.

  She was properly dressed in colors of deep mourning but her skirt had twisted beneath her, exposing her legs to her knees and revealing the row of delicate black lace along the hem of her dyed petticoat. The sight of those shapely limbs, encased in almost sheer black silk stockings, dangling above his head was incredibly provocative. A row of tiny red flowers on trailing green vines encircled her ankles and the design of blood-red flowers and lush green foliage painted on the black silk aroused and intrigued him.

  It had been a while since he’d had the opportunity to observe such magnificent limbs at such close quarters, and never dangling from the branch of an oak tree above him, but unlike the dolts beside him, Drew recognized quality when he saw it. The woman these blighters had treed was not a servant. Over the years many a serving girl had offered him the opportunity to catch sight of her undergarments and none of those undergarments had ever been made of silk, trimmed in lace, or adorned with exquisitely detailed hand-painted flowers.

  He sucked in a breath. If the rest of her looks matched the perfection of her legs, his father had definitely earned his reputation as a connoisseur of beautiful women. And that was unfortunate. Because the victim of the Trevingshire hunt could be none other than his father’s Northamptonshire mistress. And Drew had come to Swanslea Park for the express purpose of evicting her.

  “I think it’s time you called off your dogs and let the lady,”—Drew emphasized the word ever so slightly—“down from her perch. It’s also time you showed some respect for the dead.” He glared at the master of the hunt, who had joined the group of riders beneath the sheltering branches of the oak tree. “The fifteenth marquess of Templeston is no longer with us, but his order against hunting on Swanslea Park still stands.”

  There were protests from the rest of the field as the master of the hunt gathered the pack from around the tree.

  “What about the fox?” someone asked.

  “What fox?” Drew demanded.

  “The one up that tree.” The master of the hunt returned Drew’s glare. “These are some of the finest hounds in all of England. If they say there’s a fox up that tree, there’s a fox up that tree.”

  “I see a woman up a tree,” Drew answered. “But I fail to see any sign of a fox.”

  “Actually, there are both.” The voice, low and husky in tone, carried from above his head once again.

  “What?” Drew looked up through the branches. “Where?”

  “In my knapsack.”

  “You have a fox in your knapsack?” He knew he sounded like an idiot, repeating back to her what she said, but Drew couldn’t seem to help it. His father’s mistress was chock-full of surprises.

  “I couldn’t let them get her.” Her tone of voice was full of contempt for the field of hunters. “She’s tame. I’ve had her since she was a kit.”

  Drew faced the master of the hunt. “You heard the lady. You’ll have to find some other poor fox to hunt. This one is a pet.”

  “You can’t keep a fox as a pet,” one of the riders protested. “They’re vermin.”

  “I can keep anything I want as a pet,” Drew said. “Including vermin. As long as I don’t allow it to stray off my land. And the fact that Swanslea Park has a tame fox on the premises is undoubtedly the reason my father refused to allow hunting on it. Now that you’ve been made aware of the animal’s presence, I’ll thank you, ladies and gentlemen”—he stressed the courtesy titles—“to respect the late marquess’s wishes and refrain from hunting across this particular fox’s dominion. You may conduct your slaughter elsewhere. Now, I’ll bid you all good day.” He nodded toward the master of the hunt. “And good riddance,” he added sotto voce when the field withdrew.

  “You can come down now. Your fox is safe.” He waited until the last of the hunters was out of earshot before he spoke.

  High above his head, Wren hesitated.

  Drew dismounted from his horse and leaned against the trunk of the tree, tapping his toe impatiently.

  “Do you require assistance? Shall I climb up after you? Are you stuck?”

  She checked her knapsack one last time to make certain Margo couldn’t escape, then left the security of the tree’s branches and dropped to the ground beside him. “No, it’s just that I’m…”

  Drew faced her and the air left his lungs in a rush. “Kathryn…”

  Chapter Three