Maybelle stared at the wineglass filled with a yellowish murky substance. Gin. “I’ve heard very bad stories about gin.”
Edmund paused, then reached over and snatched up the glass. “I will find something a bit more respectable.”
“No, no.” She quickly took the glass from his hand and cleared her throat. “Gin will do. Really.” Her throat desperately needed something. Anything, really.
“If you say so.” Edmund seated himself diagonal to her and leaned back in the chair, watching her.
“Cheers.” Maybelle lifted the small glass to her lips and tossed as much as she could into the back of her parched throat. She gagged, the harsh, stinging liquid rushing down into her throat and up toward her nostrils. She could feel it seeping into every crevice of her stomach, causing an inferno to burn within. Ugh. And she thought cognac was deplorable.
Edmund quickly rose to assist.
Although her eyes were watering and she continued to gasp for soothing air, she waved for him to sit down. She most certainly wasn’t about to admit to him or to a room full of gamblers that she couldn’t handle a bit of gin. They’d all think she was a ninny. “I—I swallowed it wrong, is all.” She pushed the remainder of the glass toward him. “Perhaps…you should finish it.”
He shook his head and pushed it off to the side. “I’ve already had more than my share, thank you.” A small smile now played at the corners of his mouth. “Shall we play?”
“Yes.” The fiery sensation the gin had caused was finally dwindling. Now, a different sensation was taking over—that of excitement. For she was actually going to play cards. With Edmund, no less. She had never played cards with anyone else other than her grandmother.
Edmund picked up the stack of faded cards that lay waiting on the table and separated them into two piles. He zipped them together with his thumbs.
“Would you prefer to do it?” he asked, watching her. “I may not be that trustworthy. Here.” He patted them into a pile and pushed the deck toward her.
Hesitantly, Maybelle extended her hand to claim them.
That is when Edmund reached over the table and caught her wrist. “I want you to do something for me.”
His strong hand continued to hold her as if he had no intention of ever letting go. She looked up at him. “Whatever could you want now?”
He arched a brow, as if taking the challenge. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you without your gloves. Indulge me. Only this once.”
Maybelle could now feel his finger tracing the edge of the glove near her wrist, daring her to take them off. The night had hardly begun and he was already trying to get her out of her clothes.
She yanked her hand away and snatched up the glass of gin, to give her something to do. She swallowed the remaining stinging liquid and set it aside, shoving her hands into her lap. “Perhaps you should deal.”
“I will take that to mean my request has been denied.” With that, he swept up the deck set before him and shuffled.
Maybelle eyed him and hoped to change the subject. “So what are we playing?”
He shifted forward in his seat and continued to shuffle. “Écarté. Do you know the rules?”
She slowly grinned. “Quite well. It was the first card game my grandmother taught me when she came over from France. Why, I remember—”
A brocaded vest flew through the air and plopped onto the table between them.
Maybelle stared at it for a stunned moment and then burst into laughter. “Is that your wager?”
Edmund laughed, shoved the vest off their table, and shook his head. “I only wager what I can afford.”
Shuffling the cards a few more times, he grinned and passed them out. “Two for you. Two for me. Three for you. Three for me.” He paused, interrupting the deal, and slapped down the remaining cards in his hand onto the table. He eyed her.
“What is it now?” She tried to ignore that dangerous gleam that now appeared in his eyes. What was worse, she started to feel a bit of a haze coming over her. As if the gin was already taking full effect.
Edmund leaned toward the table and quirked a dark brow. “Speaking of wagers, what is to be yours?”
The haze started mixing with a bit of panic. “Mine? I am expected to wager something?”
He tapped the cards before him. “Playing cards merely to play is not by any means gambling. Gambling is when you play cards and wager.” He leaned into the table and deviously observed her. “I shall wager a score of five before you can.”
“Wagering what?” she cautiously returned. “Because my clothes stay on.”
“Damn.” He chuckled. “All right. How about you wager anything you want against something I want?”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
Maybelle wondered whether she should even consider taking up that sort of challenge. It wasn’t that she was scared of losing; she was actually very good at Écarté, but she didn’t like the way he said “something I want.” That something could very well be anything. And “anything” wasn’t something she could afford to give to a man she had already given too much to. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“You first.”
Fully aware that he was already challenging her, she finally said, “I shall wager to score five more than you.” She’d never lost a game of Écarté once she’d learned the rules. Not even to her grandmother.
“And?” he prodded.
“If I win, you will immediately withdraw from the school and refrain from ever enlisting Parliament. And put it in writing. The school requires quite the protection and I have learned, Your Grace, that I cannot entirely trust you.”
His dark eyes momentarily clouded, as if a storm had descended into his thoughts. Then, just as quickly, it lifted. He shifted in his chair. “If that is the sort of wager you wish to make.”
“Good.” She tipped unexpectedly toward the table and caught herself. Damn. She knew she should have never finished that glass of gin.
What was worse, her skin felt unbearably hot all of a sudden. No doubt the gin. It had been a rather large glass. She fanned herself. “So what is your wager?”
He leaned back against his chair, his eyes intently watching her the whole time as if expecting her to flee at any moment. “It is more of an offer than a wager, really.”
“Oh?”
He cocked his head slightly and lowered his voice. “Instead of one night for my hundred thousand, I want an entire week. Without any rules.”
Maybelle bit her lip, not wanting to even think about what that would entail.
He paused and stared her down, a strange intensity and need overtaking his sharp features. “And should you become pregnant as result of that week, you will marry me.”
Maybelle gaped at him as a flicker of apprehension coursed through her. She suddenly felt not only sober, but as if that world had snapped sharply back into focus.
Why was it that he, like the rest of the ton, was incapable of opening up to the possibility that despite her reputation, she not only had feelings, but a heart? A heart that refused to bring a defenseless child into this world and force it to suffer the same way she had growing up. In the same way her father had growing up.
Maybelle stripped both of her gloves from her hands, tossed them aside, leaned toward him, and held out a hand. “Give me your hand, Your Grace.”
He glanced at her hand. “Why?”
“Because I am asking it of you.”
He hesitated, then reached out and covered her hand with his. Maybelle brought her other hand onto his and clasped it tightly, allowing his warmth to seep into her own. Trying to make him feel that she was made of flesh and blood, as was he.
Through the cigar smoke, and the groans of loss and cries of wins, and the gin that clouded her judgment, she desperately tried to pretend that his touch did not affect her. Oh God how she tried, but all she could think about was how intimately involved they already s
eemed to be.
“Edmund.” She tried to keep her voice steady and calm. “Do you even realize what it is you are asking for? A child born unto us would be forever unhappy. Trapped between your world and mine. Never knowing where to turn. Is that what you want? For your child to be ridiculed? Scorned? Unhappy? Because that is what you will be sentencing your child to. That is why I intend to only give you one night, and mind you, that night will be conducted in a way so that your seed does not threaten my womb. Do you understand me?”
His questioning gaze turned strikingly dark and serious. And cold.
He slipped his hand out of hers and drew it back and away. He stared off to the side and shifted his jaw. “I suppose you think I have absolutely nothing to offer a child.”
Hearing the hurt and bitterness in his voice unexpectedly twisted her gut. “That is not what I meant.”
He shifted in his chair again but refused to look at her. “I know full well what you meant.” He rose. “Good night.”
Maybelle scrambled to her feet, grabbed his arm, and held him in place to keep him from going anywhere. “Edmund, it was not my intention to upset you. Understand that I am merely stating my belief. Am I not entitled to that much?”
He glanced at her hand still holding his arm and quickly looked away. “Release me,” he murmured.
“No. I will not permit you to leave my presence while in a bothered state.”
He glared at her. “Do you not understand that when it comes to you, I am forever in a bothered state? But then, I am learning that you thrill in that. It is your trade, after all.”
Her lips parted in astonishment, a crippling sensation she was not used to feeling sweeping through her. She didn’t know why she felt as if he’d stabbed at her heart. At her soul. Her heart didn’t usually respond to men in the way it was responding to him right now. Throughout her life, others had said far more cruel things to her. Yet for some reason…this hurt. Horribly.
She released his arm and stepped back. This dalliance was over. There was no choice in this. “I have no trade, Your Grace,” she coolly stated, meeting his dark gaze head-on. “Perhaps you need to understand that a whore has no choice but to take everyone’s money, while a demimondaine has a wealth of choices. I, Your Grace, am neither, as I am choosing to be independent of you and of all men. Which is why I am terminating our night. If you dare to come near me or the school I will see to it you are immediately removed. I also dare you to enlist Parliament.”
With that, she turned and walked through the spaces between the crowded tables. Although she wanted to altogether run to keep his continual stare from burning into her back, she kept a slow, steady pace, one that exuded calmness. Control. Something she certainly did not feel.
When she finally made it into the dark and quiet corridor outside of the gambling room, Maybelle paused and tried to force herself to breathe again. She momentarily closed her eyes and wished to God that she’d never laid eyes upon him. Wished to God that she’d never tried to claim him in that garden. For he belonged in a world she couldn’t even touch.
A hand suddenly pressed to the small of her back, then two. Startled, she opened her eyes and before she could respond, she was spun and set against a neighboring wall.
Edmund towered before her. He placed both hands on the wall, just above her head, and leaned toward her, his massive body blocking her in. She froze, suddenly not being able to breathe.
“Forgive me,” he softly whispered down at her, his dark eyes searching her face. “I had no right saying what I did.”
Maybelle stared at his lower jaw and felt herself growing fainter by the moment. She didn’t know why his apology meant so much to her. All she knew was in that moment, she wanted to yank him close. So close that their lips would collide and in that instance they could forget who they were and what their separate worlds expected of them.
His lips brushed against her forehead, bidding her to escape somewhere exotic with him. “Understand that I must have you. At least once.”
Maybelle closed her eyes. Oh God. A part of her wanted to be in complete control. And independent. It was all she’d ever known. All she knew she could count on. Yet another part of her wanted to give in to this blind passion and see where it could possibly lead to. One night. It was only one night. It wouldn’t change anything. She was the one in control.
She opened her eyes, trying to keep her breathing steady, her thoughts rational. “I promised one night, Your Grace, and as such, you shall receive it. The conditions, however, have changed. It is I who will inform you as to when I am ready to receive you. Though it may be in a week or it may be in a year.”
With that, she ducked, slipping beneath his muscular arms, and hurried away. She wished she could blame her rattled thoughts on the gin, but knew something else was happening to her. Whatever it was, she didn’t like it. Not one bit. She felt as if she was losing her sense of confidence and her direction in life. And control. One she had been taught to always maintain impeccably by her grandmother.
It was time to leave. She needed time to herself to clear her thoughts. Time to think about what had just occurred between her and Edmund, what it was she was feeling and what it meant.
Maybelle headed into the foyer, set on leaving the entire night behind, when she heard a man call out, “Madame de Maitenon!” from the open doors of the parlor on her left.
She froze and inwardly cringed, recognizing the voice. She slowly turned, hoping she appeared calm.
Lord Hawksford casually stood in the middle of the crowded parlor, his white collar completely stripped, exposing a solid and very attractive neck. His bronzed hair was in utter disarray, as if he’d been rolling around. He grinned from across the room, those playful green eyes clearly bidding her to join him.
Oh God. She hurried over to him, paused, and set her hands on her hips. “Do not make life difficult for me.”
“This’ll only take a moment. I assure you.” Hawksford grabbed her waist and yanked her toward his hard, muscled body. “I am in need of advice,” he drawled down at her, shifting. “Female advice.”
Cognac tinted his warm breath and his eyes appeared unusually heavy and hazy. Was the man inebriated? He had to be.
Quickly taking hold of his arms, Maybelle tried to ease out of them. “I do not think my advice will do you any good, as clearly, you won’t be able to remember a thing come morning.”
He wrapped his arm heavily around her shoulder and swayed as he tried to look down at her. “Does love truly exist? Or is it something we…want to exist?”
Maybelle froze against him. Love? She didn’t know Hawksford had even heard of the word. “Really, My Lord, this is far beyond my level of—”
His arms and his body suddenly grew heavier. Hawksford slumped toward her, his bronzed head sagging forward.
Her heart jumped as she grabbed for him and staggered, desperately trying to hold his massive body up.
“My Lord?” she demanded, feeling as though the very bones beneath her skin would snap beneath his dense weight. Her legs started to shake and although she should have dropped him, she was scared she’d end up hurting him or cracking his skull.
“I hereby claim any and all wages!” a man boomed from somewhere behind. “As I said, Hawksford wouldn’t last past twenty!”
Lovely.
Absolutely lovely.
Lesson Fourteen
What happens to a man who begins to compromise what he wants in the name of passion? It’s a delicious case of total seduction. Better known to the world by its devious alter ego as love.—The School of Gallantry
Edmund hung his head, his hands still firmly pressed against the wall. “I have completely lost my mind,” he muttered, staring down at the wood floor beneath his feet.
What was worse, he had this nagging feeling that by accepting that night in the garden, he’d handed over not just his goddamn body, but his goddamn soul. For nothing had been the same since. Nothing. He
was losing sight of what his title expected of him. Of what his mother expected of him. Of what the ton expected of him.
And being with Maybelle tonight only confirmed what he experienced in her presence each and every time. Not only hard, savage lust, but complete and total fascination. More and more he wanted to know who she was, what she thought, what she wanted out of life, and what she wanted out of a man. Out of him.
He drew in a deep breath, then pushed himself away from the paneled wall. The reality was Maybelle de Maitenon would never fit into his world. She was too wild. Too free-spirited. So unlike him. So unlike the ton.
And despite the fact that he was going to crush his mother’s dreams of having a family, he knew that after his night with Maybelle, he had no choice but to let her go. For he had no intention of forcing her into a world she clearly didn’t want to be a part of. Or a world she didn’t even belong in.
Mistress of Pleasure Page 15
