Regency: Courtship And Candlelight. Deborah Simmons

she growled.

      ‘No, it’s too risky,’ her lover argued and gave a low chuckle that made Kate shiver at the cold lustiness of their loathsome need for each other, ‘and I like you desperate, Selene. By the time Tedinton has pawed you all the way home and tried to mount you like a man, you’ll be glad to meet me in that very convenient summerhouse he’s had built in the garden for us, if he only knew it, and feel a real man between your legs again at last.’

      ‘I hate you,’ she informed him throatily and there was another of those horrible interludes as Kate heard them kiss noisily and even caught the sound of fine cloth tearing as they went at each other like beasts.

      ‘I like the way you hate. Now tidy yourself up, then get back to the ballroom and persuade that old fool to take you home early. I’ll go the other way and come back through the garden, so nobody will know you were with me. It’s only the fact I’m supposed to be courting a fortune that keeps my creditors off my back as it is, so who knows what they might do if they found out about you, my lovely doxy?’

      ‘Foreclose?’ Lady Tedinton asked as if discussing the weather and Kate felt sickened at the sound of her lover’s flat-handed slap, presumably to somewhere that didn’t show. ‘I could come to you in the Fleet,’ she offered throatily, as if violence made her more eager and Kate wondered if she might disgrace herself and Edmund by actually being sick, then considered the consequences and managed to control her revulsion after all.

      ‘No, try informing on me to get me sent there and you’ll rapidly discover what a mistake you’ve made. Just behave yourself and go on keeping that senile old idiot sweet, then be where I told you to be by dawn, Selene, or I’ll take my pleasure elsewhere. There are plenty of younger and more obliging mistresses than you who can be had for a lot less trouble than you cause me,’ Bestholme warned carelessly.

      ‘I’ll be there,’ Selene Tedinton replied urgently.

      ‘I know,’ her repulsive lover drawled huskily and Kate heard his footsteps recede while the light faded as he ungallantly took his candle away, leaving his mistress still in the dark.

      A few moments later there was the swirl of silk and satin and an exasperated curse, then softer footsteps receded towards the ballroom until all seemed silent and empty in the room beyond this airless office they’d been trapped in.