An Experienced Mistress Read Free

motioned with a jerk of his head for his friends to depart. Will shrugged and got up.
    “Damn you, Coventry,” Jack muttered, even as he complied. “I wanted some Yorkshire pudding.”
    Once they stood outside the club, Will said, “Where shall we go now?”
    “We can’t go to Brooks’s,” Jack said. “I owe too much.”
    “Never mind,” Coventry said. “We will go to an art exhibition.”
    “What?” Jack glared at him as if he suggested a jaunt to a nearby dust-heap.
    Coventry smiled. “I realize I am the only one here who gives a damn about art. But it is one of the chief events of the Season. It’s becoming quite the thing—many of the eligible ladies will be there. I imagine Will would not object to such company.”
    Naturally, this brought Will’s thoughts back to Violet Tudbury yet again, which was painful. He hadn’t the chance to adjust to the idea of being thrown over.
    Jack snorted. “Ladies! It’s not a lady he wants, after two years away. Am I not right, Will?”
    “Now, Jack,” Coventry said. “Will has no interest in your vices.”
    “Do not be so sure of that,” Will muttered.
    Coventry stared at him in surprise.
    Jack gave a grin of childlike delight. “See there?” He clamped a hand on Will’s shoulder. “The man’s been to war. He needs some creature comforts.”
    Will found that he agreed. Yes, before long he would marry. But right now, the idea of forgetting his troubles in some mindless pleasure was incredibly appealing. After all he’d been through, he deserved to enjoy himself.
    “Well, I daresay fancy women may also be available. These things attract all sorts.” Coventry gestured with his walking-stick. “This way, gentlemen.”
    The gallery was, as Coventry predicted, rather crowded. Refined couples milled about, greeting and gossiping with one another. Several young ladies, in their brightly colored silks and taffetas, promenaded at the sides of their mamas or other suitable chaperones. The girls feigned interest in the pictures while casting sidelong glances at the gentlemen. The young men, for their part, barely pretended to be interested in art.
    “These pictures are damned odd,” Jack said, earning a nasty look from a man nearby. “This one’s bright as a church window.”
    Will smirked. “When have you seen a church window?”
    “They are by the Pre-Raphaelites,” Coventry told them.
    “The Pre-what?”
    “Pre-Raphaelites. They’re rebelling against the rules of the Academies, which have the students copy Raphael.” When Jack gave him a blank look, he laughed. “Never mind. All you need to know is that they’re becoming more and more dear. A few years ago they were scoffed at, but now they’re immensely popular.”
    “They’re immensely peculiar,” Jack said.
    “Coventry, what’s in the back?” Will asked. He saw a few men coming out of a door, but no women, as if it were a smoking-room.
    “Why, the nudes, of course. They can’t be displayed out here. They would certainly offend ladies’ tender sensibilities.”
    “Well, I want to see them,” Jack said.
    Will smiled. Then the smile left his face as two women emerged from the back room.
    Women, but perhaps not ladies. They were not dressed at all properly. Will’s attention immediately focused on the taller of the pair.
    In a sea of black frock coats and gaudy gowns, she looked as out of place as a medieval Guineviere. Her thick, wavy red hair hung loose. She wore a long white dress that flowed to the floor, neither cinched in at the waist nor belled out at the skirts. Her heavy-lidded eyes and full, lush mouth bespoke a rebellious sensuality.
    “Who are the women in their nightdresses?” Jack demanded.
    Coventry laughed. “Why, they’re ‘Artistics.’ Friends of the painters. Models for them, too, I shouldn’t wonder. See, they’re dressed like the women in the pictures.”
    “I’ll be damned,” Jack said.
    “Some say they don’t even wear corsets. They are bohemian,