The Accidental Mistress by Tracy Anne Warren

Author:Tracy Anne Warren
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780345502438
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

The following afternoon, Lily slid the tines of her nuncheon fork into a piece of perfectly poached salmon and lifted the bite to her lips.

“I called on you yesterday,” Davina remarked from the other side of the Coateses’ smaller dining-room table. The two women were alone in the family wing of the house, Lord Coates having departed hours ago for Parliament. “Your butler told me you had gone out driving. With the marquis again, I presume?”

Lily was glad she had already swallowed the food in her mouth or else she feared she might have choked. Reaching for her wineglass, she drank a slow, steadying amount. Taking her time, she returned the long-stemmed goblet to the linen-draped table. “Yes, another lesson. I thought I had mentioned I would be away.”

Davina ate a forkful of scalloped potatoes, swallowing politely before she spoke. “You did. I merely assumed you would have returned by four in the afternoon. I had some pretty buttons I found at one of the Bond Street shops on which I wanted your opinion.”

Inwardly, Lily winced. “I am sorry I had not yet arrived home. I should like to see the buttons. Why do you not show them to me now?”

“I will go get them as soon as we are finished with our repast.”

Lily stabbed a slice of crisp cucumber, hoping Davina would take the hint and change the subject.

“So where did you go?”

Lily stabbed the cucumber again, leaving behind a series of tiny holes identical to those inflicted by her first bit of violence upon the vegetable. “When?”

“With the marquis, of course. Surely you did not spend all that time driving around the city.”

She stabbed a piece of yellow tomato this time. “We went to Richmond.”

Davina paused with her fork in midair, her eyes bright with interest. “Did you? How was the journey?”

“The journey went well. I drove.”

“All that distance?”

She nodded. “My final lesson at curricle driving.”

“Once you arrived, what then?”

Then we spent the night at an inn, where I had my first real lesson at making love.

Tamping down an invisible shiver, Lily struggled to put the memories aside, a difficult task since she had awakened in Ethan’s arms only that morning. Already, those moments seemed so long ago, as though a lifetime had passed.

“We drove to Richmond Park.”

“And?”

“And we had a lovely picnic, at least until the bee.”

“There was a bee?”

Blast my mouth! Lily cursed, fearing she’d said too much.

“Yes, a yellow jacket,” she offered. “The nasty creature crawled down the marquis’s cravat and stung him. He had a reaction and fell ill.”

Davina’s eyes widened. “How dreadful! Is he all right?”

“Oh, yes, he is perfectly well now, though I am sure he would appreciate it if you were to say nothing of the incident.”

“Not to worry, my lips are sealed. So you drove him straight back to town?”

Lily cut the tomato in half, then abandoned her fork on the plate. “No, we stopped at an inn, where a physician was called.”

“My goodness. Well, that explains why you were so late returning,” Davina concluded.

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