Once Upon a Time in Bath by Cheryl Bolen

Author:Cheryl Bolen [Bolen, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency romance
Publisher: Harper & Appleton
Published: 2020-10-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Appleton crumpled the paper. It simply would not do to dismiss Betsy Pratt with a letter. After all, she had been his mistress for the past two years. He thought. He wasn’t very good with dates, and it wasn’t as if he spent very much time with her.

It wasn’t as if one went about in public with a woman of that sort. He had three young sisters to consider. And it wasn’t as if Mrs. Pratt was the kind of woman one wished to spend a great deal of time with. She was pretty enough. And obliging enough. But the woman, who was some half a dozen years older than he, was as dull as a wooden spoon.

There was nothing to do but to go to her tonight and explain the reversal in his fortunes which necessitated a break between them. First he penned a letter to the woman he’d rather go to tonight, the woman whose fortune would rescue his family from ruin. He needed to notify Dot that he would not be seeing her until the next day when they’d go back to Ellie’s street.

With Digby’s assistance, he made himself agreeable looking and presented himself at Mrs. Pratt’s modest but most respectable looking house east of the river not long after dark. “Good evening, my lord,” her butler said, swinging open the door from him to enter. It was clear from the tone of the butler’s voice he was surprised to see Appleton. It had been quite a while since he’d last visited Betsy Pratt.

“I shall tell Mrs. Pratt you’re here. Permit me to show you to the drawing room.”

Though small, the lady’s drawing room was tastefully furnished with a Turkey carpet on the floor and scarlet draperies at the single narrow window. The draperies were not of costly silk but of a cheaper fabric that mimicked it. A single sofa in the same scarlet fabric faced the fire where a mantelpiece featured a fine wooden case clock on balled feet.

Instead of sitting, he paced the chamber.

A few minutes later, she entered. “My lord! I’ve missed you most dreadfully. Have you not come rather early tonight? I am delighted, of course. Shall we go upstairs?”

He looked at her. Even though she was not in mourning, she wore black. That was to perpetuate the myth she was a widow when in fact she had never been married.

Her hair had been a shade of medium brown. Why had he never noticed how many gray strands had woven into it? There was an artificial look about her. Some kind of white powder covered her face and made her look even older, and she’d darkened her cheeks with bright red rouge.

He supposed he’d not noticed these things before because he and she normally spent their time together in her bedchamber with only the light from a single taper or the fire.

Then, too, he’d been more interested in her figure, which he found pleasing, owing to his appreciation of a generous bosom—the only physical trait this woman shared with his betrothed.

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