title: A History of Mistresses
author:  Elizabeth Abbott 
description: She has been known as the 'kept woman', the 'fancy woman' and the 'other woman'. She is both a fictional character and flesh-and-blood human being. But who is she, really? What do Madame de Pompadour, Heloise, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Eyre and Camilla Parker-Bowles have in common? Why do women become mistresses, and what is it like to have a private life that is usually also a secret life? Is a mistress merely a wife-in-waiting, or is she the very definition of the modern emancipated, independent female? In "A History of Mistresses" Elizabeth Abbott intelligently probes the motives and morals of some of history's most infamous and fascinating women. Drawing intimate portraits of those who have - either by chance, coercion or choice - assumed this complex role, from Chinese concubines and European royal mistresses to mobster molls and trophy dolls, "A History of Mistresses" offers a rich blend of history, personality and cultural study.
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  All A Mistress Wants
  
  By
  
  Eliza Lloyd
  
  Copyright 2015
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter One
  
  According to everyone in London, from the lowliest housemaid at Sterling House
  to the bluest of blue bloods at Carlton House, there was no greater love than
  that of Adam Forrester, Duke of Sterling, for his bride of eleven years, the
  beautiful and fragile Nellie Kent. The duchess bore four children, the pride
  and joy of the family, especially the two oldest, both strapping lads who
  resembled their father.
  
  On the night of the Prince Regent’s coronation, the Duchess of Sterling
  shuffled off her mortal coil after a long struggle with consumption. The duke
  was inconsolable, retiring to the country with the children for the length of
  one year.
  
  When he returned to London, he still bore the solemn edge of grief. Ever a
  serious man to begin with, the duke displayed all the haughty manners of one
  born to power and privilege and no one attempted to suggest opportunities that
  might lesson his sorrow.
  
  A