She raised her brows, a skeptical look in her eyes. “I don’t think it could be that easy.”
“Of course, nothing worth having is ever easy.”
She studied him for several moments. The sadness that entered her eyes seemed to strike him straight in the guts. “Some things just aren’t possible.” Sighing, she rolled away and onto her side, the soft, seductive curve of her arse moving beneath the sheet. He reached to caress it.
“It’s ridiculous for you to deny yourself the pleasure of a cigar just because I happen to be sharing your bed.”
“I told you before, a gentleman never smokes in the presence of his lady.”
“But I am not a lady.”
His hand froze and he retracted it. Hadn’t she listened to a word he’d said? Did she think he took opening his life to her lightly? How could she continue to do this? Turn something simple like smoking a cigar into a statement of her self-professed lowly status in life. “Beth, don’t put this issue between us. I don’t judge you in that manner.”
She sat up with such speed, the bed rocked. “I must go soon anyway.”
“I know.” The shortening of their time together lessened his ire. He traced a fingertip along the pearls, wanting to take her dainty pink nipples into his mouth until they were stiff peaks again. However, they had something to discuss.
She unlatched the necklace, slipped it off and handed it to him. “You’d better keep these.”
“I gave them to you.”
“I cannot take them home. How would I explain them?”
“Hide them.”
“In a house full of curious children, nothing can be truly hidden.”
“Forget this nonsense.” He tapped her hand with his finger. “I want this house to be yours.”
She blinked hard several times. “Mine?”
“I want you settled. I want to go about my business and know you are safe and comfortable. I want to be able to come and visit you here at my leisure.”
She straightened her spine and squared her shoulders. “I won’t be your mistress.”
Her words stung. “I don’t know how to say this, but you are already here, naked in my bed.”
“Oh, be very clear, sir, ours is a temporary arrangement.”
He scowled. “You are playing at semantics.”
“No, I am not. If I took this house, you would expect a tyrant’s rights. Your requirements.”
“I require nothing unreasonable. I just want your promise to be faithful and I want you to accept my protection.”
Her eyes flashed. “You mean your dictates?”
“I mean I want you to listen to my advice for your well being and safety and abide by it. You can be so impetuous. You need some guidance. I cannot be worried about you every moment of every day I am parted from you.”
“That’s ridiculous. I am a woman not a girl. And you’re asking for a husband’s rights.”
“A mistress and a protector can often have an agreement very much like a husband and wife. It simply depends on what each of them wants. In return, I’ll provide you with a carriage and horses, and a groom to care for them. Also, a housekeeper and a personal maid.” He took her hand, turned it over, and traced the reddened palm with a fingertip. “You needn’t be soaking your hands in lye like some lowly laundress.”
Her chin jutted out in a way that infuriated him. “No, I won’t be a slave to—”
“You’re making excuses.”
“Besides, if I lived here, everyone would know I was your mistress.”
“Another excuse.”
“A very valid one!” Her face flushed and her breasts jiggled. She looked magnificent.
She also frustrated the hell out of him.
He took a deep breath, struggled to keep his voice even. “So long as we are discreet not many will greatly care. We would hardly be the first.”
“My family will care. If they knew…I couldn’t face their shame. Then you’ll tire of me—”
“Not anywhere this side of forever.” Unable to resist, he leaned down and captured a rose-colored nipple in his mouth.
She pulled away and hugged the sheet to herself. “Ha! Words. Gentlemen love to throw them around. They make life sound so pretty but they mean nothing. You would never come to my brother’s shop and ask to court me. Admit it.”
Her eyes widened and her soft, pink mouth dropped open, as though her words had shocked her.
Well, they had shocked the very devil out of him. “Court you?”
“Yes.” Her voice was small, girlish, her eyes shone as bright and blue as a springtime sky. “Court me.”
Her tone almost made the last two words sound like a question.
He shook his head. “You would not relish the duties and responsibilities of being a New York City society wife.”
The brightness in her eyes dimmed. Her body sagged.
He felt that peculiar pinching sensation in his chest. Marry Beth? He caught his breath. Then he released it and breathed slowly through the stitch in his ribs, riding the wave until it had passed. Sanity prevailed. No, she just didn’t understand. She was still young, naïve in a very touching way despite her carnal experience. She knew nothing about his world. As far as that went, she knew very little about him. His true nature. He had to make her understand. “Believe me, Beth, your life would be just as luxurious and far more enjoyable as my mistress.”
Her expression hardened and her eyes turned to ice.
“Perhaps.” She raised her shoulders and held them stiffly. “Nevertheless, it’s knowing you wouldn’t court me that makes the difference. I may be poor, a soiled dove, but I still have my pride.”
“But you said you didn’t want marriage. You’ve changed your mind?”
“Maybe…I don’t know.” Her voice rose on the last words. She closed her eyes and her shoulders rose and fell with her deep breaths. “You’ve mixed me up so much I don’t know what I want.”
“Beth, you’re not talking sense.”
“You offer me all of this so conditionally, with no care about the consequences to me. The balance of power seems totally on your side.”
“Is it a matter of security? I’ll put your name on the deed.”
“You’d give it to me outright, simply because we bedded a few times?”
“I am proposing a long-term arrangement.”
“Wouldn’t it be a poor investment? You live in New York.”
“I spend about a third of my time here on business. I like Philadelphia.” He grinned and took her hand. “I like Philadelphia women even more.”
She jerked her hand back.
He struggled to understand what would pacify her. “Would you prefer another house? Something larger?”
“Well, I hardly know what I may expect. You were so intent upon your requirements, we never did discuss my expectations.”
Why was she being so damned difficult? Did she think he’d made such a generous offer to a woman ever before?
“Beth, I ordered a piano for this house. A five-octave grand piano made by Stein. But it was very hard to locate one with the embargo and it will not be here for a week or so.”
“A grand piano made by Stein.” Her voice sounded so shaky, she had trouble pronouncing the last word. Her eyes were huge.
“Yes.”
“For this house?”
“For you.” Why hadn’t he begun with the piano? “You could teach—“ His mind quickly jumped ahead. “Beth, I would also find you a suitable building—or have it built—and you could have your music school. For the disadvantaged little girls. And you could have many pianos and hire other teachers. It would be a real school and girls would come from near and far. Some of them could pay in order to help finance the poorer girls.”
The words left his mouth before he could fully realize what he was saying. But this was right. She deserved to have her dream. It was a worthy dream and, surprisingly enough, it was one he suddenly longed to share.
He wanted to share h
er life.
God, he wanted to share her life.
She went paler than before and her mouth dropped open.
Good, she was tempted. He would sweeten the deal while he had the advantage.
“You want more security than a house and you want it up front.” He studied her calm blue gaze. “Of course you do. You are an intelligent woman. I see no reason to haggle with you. If you accept my terms—”
“Your terms?” Her face flushed and her eyes sparked.
“Yes, if you accept my terms, I’ll invest a sum of…” At the affronted look on her face, he doubled the amount. “Fifty thousand dollars, which upon my death will revert to you.”
“Fifty thousand?” Her mouth fell open, wider this time.
His heart thudded hard against his ribcage. He should have said a hundred thousand.
Damn you, when the stakes are high and the prize worth winning, never bid low.
Too late. He’d look weak if he offered more now. “It’s more than generous.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Her eyes were wide and her face had gone ashen.
He didn’t know if that was good or bad, so he clamped his jaw while he wasn’t too far behind.
“No, it’s no good,” she said with heart-stopping firmness. “Everyone would know.”
“They would. But as I said, no one would greatly care, so long as we were discreet.”
“Discreet? You would buy me a school and say that was discreet?”
“Beth, that would be my excuse to be in your life. I would be your kindly benefactor. A patron of your artistic talents. We could still be quite discreet about the private side of the matter.”
“Everyone would know.”
“They would guess. It wouldn’t matter as long as we conform to certain unwritten rules.”
“I don’t know about the unwritten rules of your world. I hardly know what fork to use at a formal dinner!”
He frowned with concern. “I will guide you through all of that, if only you will open yourself to trusting me. To obeying me when it matters most.”
She grew quiet for a time. His hopes increased. However, he didn’t push this time.
Her pale, finely etched brows drew together. “But my brother would know.”
Oh, damn, not back to that again. “Of course he would, but what of it? Doesn’t he want to see you live in comfort?”
“It would break his heart. He would disown me.”
“Are you sure?”
“He’d call you out.”
True, he might. Nothing risked, nothing gained. “If he knows you will be well taken care of, his opinion may change.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I won’t chance it.”
“You act as if the ground is going to open up and swallow us whole. This isn’t the first time in history a man ever asked a woman to be his mistress.”
Her blue eyes met his evenly. “And this isn’t the first time a woman has turned a man down.”
Chapter Eight
Grey blinked. Was he hallucinating? He’d offered Beth extravagant—no, outrageous—terms. Thrown his heart at her feet. And she had turned him down as casually as someone declining an extra lump of sugar at teatime. Unthinkable. He took a deep breath. Several of them. And he still didn’t trust himself to speak.
“Besides,” she continued. “They need me to live in their house, to help with the children.”
Bitter frustration knifed through his guts. Her damned family was the only thing holding her back. She enjoyed being in his bed. She’d enjoy being taken care of outside of his bed even better.
“And I have a young, impressionable niece. I cannot provide such a bad example to her. So please, no more gifts or…” She waved airily. “Whatever you call this.”
“A carte-blanche.” He couldn’t keep the resentment out of his voice.
“Please don’t take it so personally.”
He watched her arise and dress, amazed. She seemed so calm and unconcerned. He couldn’t tell precisely what he was feeling, except it was burning and raw, radiating from his chest to lodge in his throat. This was all he would have of her. Furtive love in the afternoon. He was just another stiff cock between her legs. Her fancy of the moment. Awareness of his position shook him to his core.
She paused in rolling a stocking on. “Must you scowl at me like that?”
“I need to return home soon. I want this business between us settled.”
“When you return here, we can see each other again.”
“And while I am gone, how shall you find your amusements?”
She laughed in a cynical tone. “And do you not have at least one bit of fluff stashed away in New York? I shall be a case of out of sight, out of mind.”
He couldn’t even recall Kate’s pretty face; she was a blur of vibrant red hair and ivory skin. She was no one to him now. Just an obligation he’d have to deal with. But he wouldn’t tell Beth this. It would leave him too vulnerable for her to realize the depth of her hold over him.
“Would you like to have a house in New York as well?” A gale of renewed energy swept through him. “Will you come there with me?”
She rolled the stocking up in several jerks. “Certainly not.” Her pale brows drew together and she glanced up. “And just to be clear, your life apart from me is no more my affair than mine is yours.”
“I see, all civilized and sophisticated.” God, he sounded like a jackass.
As if a mask had fallen away, her eyes were stricken. “I have a duty to my family! Why won’t you understand? I cannot up and follow you about as your leman. And our association must remain private.”
“Why must it, Beth? So your other lovers won’t know?”
“You refuse to understand.” Her voice trembled and she closed her eyes, gripping the bed’s edge. “If you truly cared for me, you wouldn’t press me.”
The uncertainty was intolerable. He would allow this slip of a young woman to manipulate him not one moment more. “Enough. If you won’t commit to me, then—”
Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. “Commit?” Crimson color highlighted her cheekbones. “You demand I commit to you. But you offer nothing of yourself in return. Nothing real.”
Nothing real? He had offered her a fortune in return for the pleasure of her company and fidelity. But he wouldn’t defend himself to her. Certainly he would never explain the obvious. He wouldn’t reveal his weakness to her. He was already too desperate to attain her promises. To attain her. And she must know it. He fixed her with his sternest look. “Beth, you must commit.”
Her eyes flew open. “Else what?” she snapped.
“We shall be at an end.”
Her face froze into a mask of resistance. A nauseating cold in his belly warned him to say something—anything—to repair the moment. But pride pushed it down.
“Then so be it, sir,” she said. The finality of her tone resounded in his chest with the force of a pistol’s recoil.
Chapter Nine
“You were overlong in Philadelphia.”
Grey handed his hat over to the waiting butler. Marie had done well enough with just a housekeeper and a lady’s maid. But Kate required a full staff.
“You said you’d be gone a month at most this time.” Kate’s clipped English accent had once seemed so refined and at odds with her vibrant, sensual beauty. How it had fascinated him in the past.
Now, she was simply Kate.
That she’d come into the vestibule to greet him spoke volumes. She normally waited for him in the sitting room and had the butler escort him into her presence. As he waited for the servant to leave them, Grey studied her in the lamplight.
She was tall for a woman. She could look him in the eye without tilting her head. Her willowy figure with its high, full breasts was still youthful despite her age of thirty-five. Tonight, she wore her bright red hair loose. He’d always been quite partial to red hair. All his mistresses had had red hair. Strange, he’d never thought much of that b
efore. But yes, he preferred redheads. Blondes were just too cold-hearted.
He was glad to be home in New York.
He was glad, damn it.
She looked down and her eyes had grown larger.
He realized that his hands were balled at his sides and he relaxed them.
She jerked her gaze back to his face. For the first time since he’d asked her to be his mistress, Kate looked unsure. Vulnerable. “What is the matter?” she said. “You don’t look like yourself. Have you been ill?”
Ill? Didn’t she think he looked happy to see her? Hadn’t he come here his very first evening home? Didn’t that tell her anything? Finally, alone with her in the vestibule, he took two steps towards her and then grasped her by the shoulders, jerked her to himself, lowered his head and put his mouth to hers.
Hungrily.
Harshly.
He was glad to be here with her, damn it.
The touch of her lips, the scent of her perfume, violet and sweet pea, the feel of her waist under his hands. All very familiar sensations, very fond, familiar sensations…and yet they sent a prickling, irritable energy crackling through him.
It was the same sensation he’d experienced earlier, at his favorite dinner club, when he’d sat down to a full meal of beefsteak and pudding. As soon as he’d sat at his customary table, a young man had started playing piano, and the inadequacy of his skill had brought a most unwelcome memory of how beautifully Beth played. He’d only heard her once. The day he’d gone to see her at Mrs. Bickle’s inn. He had stood in the entrance and listened to her for a long while before he’d gone to confront her for not meeting with him at his rooms.
Dear God. He couldn’t summon an ounce of desire for Kate.
He forced himself to be gentle in pushing away from her.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and then gaped at him. “What was that about?”
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