But how quickly love is disappointed, made a mockery.
With renewed determination, Hope pleasured him with all the considerable skill she’d learned over the two years of her dreadful calling. If he had loved her, she would not let that love fizzle out for lack of being well met. No, she’d see it go up in flames, incinerating them both.
Withdrawing her lips from his, she pushed him onto his back and wriggled down so she could take him in her mouth.
He gasped, moaned—though it sounded more like defeat or surrender than ecstasy. Still, he did not push her away. He did not choose to end the encounter. He was entranced. His hand cupped the top of her head as his body notched up his growing desire in each slight jerk of taut sensory pleasure.
To pleasure a man to climax in these circumstances was Hope’s preferred method of ending the encounter.
Tonight, she was desperate to have him inside her. She’d carried the feeling of their last encounter like a slow-burning flame within her heart, and the anticipation of knowing that tonight he was a willing participant—yes, willing, albeit reluctant—might go some way to dispelling the grief that was a foregone conclusion of tonight’s encounter.
When he was near the edge, she wriggled up the bed and cupped his face. “I want to feel you,” she whispered, arching her back and making her invitation implicit. “I’ve only ever wanted you.”
She closed her eyes and gripped his buttocks as she opened her legs to him, awaiting the sensation with heart-pounding anticipation, whimpering as she felt the tip of his manhood breach her entrance.
He’d not hesitated. She understood he was now pledged to end this. Finish this and end this. With her.
It was a relief. His reluctance had frightened her from the moment she’d seen the dismay in his face. She’d not wanted to believe she might not be able to repeat their first time together.
With a cry, he plunged into her, his hands pinioning her wrists as he thrust into her, and she whimpered in pleasure. Let him take that away. The fact he’d brought a jade to the pinnacle.
He would exorcise her through this act of lust and passion; he would remind himself that the sexual act was base, and that tenderness played no role for he had been badly hurt.
Just as she had.
With a cry of rapture and despair, he came, his face buried in the pillow beside her as he continued to breathe heavily, not moving.
Nor did Hope move. She wanted to feel the weight of him, bearing down on her, depending on her, loving her, hating her. She wanted him close.
Too soon, he rolled off her. Wearily, he sat on the edge of the mattress and put his head in his hands.
Hope hadn’t expected this. The silence was terrible.
She’d wanted this so much, but now she wondered if this act of what was for her pure love would come at the cost of her soul.
When he didn’t move, didn’t speak, she crawled over the mattress on the other side and slipped to the floor. She dressed quietly. Only the soft rustle of her blue velvet skirts across the floorboards indicated what she was doing.
It was an ensemble that she could get in and out of without help, but if the circumstances were right, she could claim helplessness for the man who enjoyed participating in disrobing; or she could cater to the chivalry or pretended tenderness of the man who wished to assist the woman he’d just ravished.
When she’d smoothed her ringlets and arranged her pert confectionery of exquisite millinery upon her head, she regarded Mr Durham uncertainly.
It seemed he really had managed to exorcise her from his heart through their base actions for he neither moved nor looked at her.
Her throat was dry. She blinked away her tears. On the far side of the room was his escritoire where he wrote his letters and where she could see he kept his pocketbook.
What could she do? Wilfred wanted her to steal from him. Prove that she was a worthless jade.
Well, she didn’t need to steal from him to prove that. His immobility and patent disgust proved she was no longer a threat to Annabelle.
Chapter 6
“Stay.” Her hand was already on the doorknob when the reluctant directive issued from him. Reluctant it clearly was. Hope was practiced at distinguishing between the tones that indicated desperate want and weary resignation.
She didn’t want to stay. To stay threatened the strength she’d built up in that agonising transition from her naked vulnerability on the mattress to being mistress of her own destiny. To stay put her back in his power. He was the man she wanted, desired. She’d not wanted or desired any other man, and to be in thrall courted her own death. Death of her tenuous inner being.
Hope stopped, but she did not turn. She didn’t remove her hand from the doorknob. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Perhaps he didn’t know either. A great wall of disappointment welled between them. He wanted her as he remembered her: pure and unsullied. But now that she was the opposite of that to all men, and for the taking, available to anyone prepared to pay for her, he’d still wanted her. No doubt he already despised himself for his weakness, hating her all the more for what she’d had no choice in becoming.
Silence stretched between them. Finally, she turned.
“Will you come back?”
She gave a light shrug. “If somebody pays me.” There. She’d be on her way soon enough after that, and he’d never know how much it cost her to sever ties. Self-preservation. That was worth anything. Madame Chambon had instilled that into her girls.
“All right.”
Puzzled, she watched him reach forward to open the drawer of his escritoire. He pulled out a roll of banknotes.
“How much do you want?”
“I told you. This afternoon…now…is already paid for.” Shame burned her cheeks. Paid for, in effect, by the man who would ensure that their connection did not continue.
He nodded, slowly, though he still held the banknotes in a tight ball. “But you’ll come back if I pay you?”
“If that is what you want.”
“Is it what you want?”
“It’s of no concern what I want.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” He straightened and looked out of the window. “So…I could be any man, and you’d do what was asked of you…as long as you were paid.”
“It’s how I keep from starving.”
“Dear God,” he muttered, turning, his eyes boring into hers. “What happened to you?”
She couldn’t help herself. She moved slowly forward for the connection was too strong to ignore. He wanted her back. For another precious half an hour she could drown in his arms and imagine the life she might have had.
“I made a miscalculation.” She stood only a couple of feet from him now. “But that’s not a conversation I want to pursue. I am here for your pleasure now.”
He raised his eyebrows with faint scepticism. “Certainly not for yours. Pleasure is the preserve of the man willing to pay for it. Not for the woman?”
“I don’t think that’s quite accurate.” She smiled as she put her hand on his cheek, for she could when she was playing a role. The coquette. That’s what he’d enjoy for it was safely removed from earnest, innocent Miss Merriweather. “I think gentlemen like to use that as their excuse for variety after they’ve wed.”
“You don’t think a wife would prefer to be spared the excessive attentions of her husband?”
“Only a husband who does not share a mutual love with his wife would believe that.” He moved his cheek into her hand, and she raised her other hand to gently ruffle his hair. Just as she’d always dreamed of doing. “You must feel something for Miss Hunt to have gone so far as to contemplate marriage. Tenderness, perhaps? A desire to do with her what we’ve done today? Why would she not feel the same?”
He closed his eyes and gently gripped her wrist. “When I kissed her, I hoped I’d feel more.”
Hope experienced a sense of grim satisfaction at the admission. She also knew that Wilfred’s promise not to sull
y Charlotte’s wedding aspirations hinged on Hope doing all in her power to promote the shaky union between Felix and his sister.
“Sometimes it’s better not to hurl oneself into a union in a surfeit of desire only to be disappointed. Love grows.”
“And a harlot would know? Have you ever been in love?”
Hope was glad he couldn’t see her expression. “I’ve felt desire, contrary to what you apparently believe. And I’m not an aberration. Every woman wants to feel desired by the man she loves. Every woman wishes for love when she must take a husband. Annabelle would be no different. She loves you, doesn’t she?”
Hope lowered herself onto his lap and put her head on his shoulder. It was nice to feel him like this. Yes, he was angry but in a more contained, contemplative way. Passion spent, they could, perhaps, go some way towards being honest with one another. Honest in voicing their disappointment. And Hope could persuade him that Annabelle was the woman for him. If she could manage just that without having to damn herself in his eyes at the same time—with the thoroughness Wilfred wanted—it would be some small victory. Satisfying Wilfred was all that mattered.
“Yes.” He began to stroke her hair, moving his hand to her cheek which he caressed gently.
“And she would make a good wife.” Hope squeezed shut her eyes as she remembered the malice in Annabelle’s when the girl had raised her gaze from Hope and Felix’s clasped hands after she’d come upon them in the shadows after the Hunt Ball.
“She would.” He cupped her chin and moved his face closer. “She would make an excellent wife.” He touched his lips to hers, and Hope felt the familiar need and want within her flower as it took on a life of its own. A deep throbbing sensation began at her core and made her tremble as he increased the pressure of his lips. She felt she was breathing him in. It was a powerful aphrodisiac. Until he murmured, “And you could be my mistress.”
She drew back, rising rapidly to her feet. She should have expected it, she berated herself silently. She should have been prepared for the lash that followed the loving. It was not good form to show her emotions like this.
“You don’t like the idea?” he asked. There was a strange insolence in the tone of the question. Or was she just imagining it?
Hope raised one shoulder slightly as she affected a amusement. It was hard to pretend the heartless jade when she threatened to combust with feeling. “You’d not be able to afford me.” She tried for a trill, or at least a lighthearted tinkle of a laugh, but it sounded hard and mercenary. Just as he believed her to be.
He rolled onto his side, full length on the bed, and regarded her from this semi-recumbent position, naked on the vast expanse of white linen. What an exquisite vision he was. She turned her head to look through the window, blinking away the scalding tears she must save until later.
“A man of my means and station is almost expected to take a woman to please his carnal needs. I’m confident we could negotiate a price.”
This was not the Felix she knew. There was a brittle edge to his words she’d not heard before. Had she truly not known him? Was her love based on a false effigy? It would be easier if she did believe that.
She glanced at him, trying to read him, and found she could not. Flailing in uncharted waters, she was unsure how to respond. “I don’t think Annabelle would like that.”
“We are talking about what I want, not Annabelle.”
“Would you be so cruel that you’d do that to her within…within a month of marriage?”
“I was thinking now might be a good time.” He smiled at her. “A good time to take a mistress, that is. If Annabelle learned of it and wished to seek a husband elsewhere, then I would not try to persuade her otherwise.”
Hope almost felt sorry for Annabelle. But then, it would be rough justice.
“I’ve been under pressure to take a wife,” Felix went on. “I’ve been contemplating the prospect of Annabelle with no real joy.” He regarded her stonily. “Now that you’ve reentered my life in the guise of a woman of pleasure, I like the idea of taking you as my mistress and marrying Annabelle.”
She had no response. Was he really so base and shallow that it made no difference she was a whore just so long as his desires were fulfilled? But she knew he wasn’t like that. He was testing her.
He cleared his throat. “Or do you have objections?”
Hope turned away. She could be his mistress. The idea was agonisingly appealing. She could never be his wife, after all. And she’d be the exclusive property of the man she loved. Not shared around by those who could pay for her.
“Or would you miss the variety?”
Stung, she turned on her heel. How could she agree? Wilfred would never sanction it. It would demean his sister and, in turn, himself.
“I don’t know how to answer you,” she whispered.
“Come closer.” His command was uttered in little more than a whisper, but she was like a toy in his hands, unable to deny him.
Except where her sister’s future happiness lie.
She approached him warily.
“Sit on the bed.”
She sat and he came up behind her, kneeling to twine his arms about her neck, dipping his hands into her bodice and kneading her nipples. She breathed in deeply. Was he going to punish her now?
She still couldn’t read him.
His mouth was hot on her neck. “Do you want to be my mistress?”
She exhaled on a sob, inclining her head the slightest fraction as she whispered tearfully, “I never thought you the kind of man to take a mistress.”
“I never thought myself the kind of man to take a mistress until I realised it was the only way to have you.”
The harshness in his tone was at odds with the gentleness of his loving for his hands were roaming beneath the bodice of her cuirass as he nipped her earlobe. “How do I take this off?”
She guided his hands to the fastenings, and he unclasped her skirt, taking obvious pleasure in following its progress to the ground, kissing his way down the length of her thigh then removing her bodice and, finally, her corset, before he lay her on the bed.
When he leant over her, looking into her eyes, he murmured, “You know nothing of me. Do you expect I’ll be generous?”
“If you’re a generous lover you’ll be generous in other ways.” She tried not to cry. His tenderness hurt, his harshness was as painful. She suspected revenge might be his motive, but she could not be sure. She’d not thought Felix to have a vengeful nature. But then, what did she really know of men? Or women?
“And would you call me a generous lover?’ His breath was hot on her neck as he curled his body round hers. She was naked now except for her stockings and corset.
“You’ll have to remind me.” She injected salaciousness into her tone and he responded as she’d hoped he would. No more of this dancing around the edges of what they were both about. It was too exhausting, too disorientating.
With a growl that suggested he was actually enjoying himself, he rolled on top of her and latched onto her nipple, filling her with a pleasure so exquisite she gasped aloud. She ruffled his hair, the smooth brown waves caressing her skin as he kissed her breasts, her throat, her mouth, before working his way down her belly.
A deep throbbing at her core filled her with a cocktail of the most intense ecstasy.
Skitters of desire made her tremble in his arms.
This time he held her tenderly and made love to her generously.
And Hope thought it was how she would like to die.
Chapter 7
Their lovemaking had been slow, intense, and deeply satisfying. Until this man, Hope had never enjoyed the act before. Now, as she stared at Felix’s rested, angelic face while he slept, she supposed she never would again.
She glanced between the bed, the writing desk, and the door. Wilfred’s promissory note was in Felix’s wallet, which was in the drawer. She’d caught a glimpse earlier of what she believed was the document Wilfred demanded she retrie
ve. Once she’d seized that, together with whatever money she could find, her job would be done.
She stopped. No, she’d not take the money. She was not a grubby thief. Wilfred would get the promissory note for five hundred pounds that he’d signed over to Felix when he’d lost at the gaming tables ten days previously but that would be all. Just possibly, he’d not find the opportunity to hand it over to Felix before Charlotte’s wedding in which case, Hope’s reputation in Felix’s eyes mightn’t be completely shredded. Just possibly, there might be some kind of future for Hope and Felix.
But her first duty was safeguarding her sister’s happiness.
As for Hope, she’d be no different than she had been three days before: a sinful, shameless, harlot destined for hell.
Only now, she’d be one who’d discovered that the scar tissue surrounding her heart was less impermeable than she’d feared.
* * *
Felix awoke, conscious of a great emptiness. It was usually so, but this time, in addition to the emptiness in his heart, was his consciousness of the emptiness of his bed.
As if something had been actively taken away from him.
For two years, he’d felt a sense of loss, but during the last six months that feeling had been augmented by a sense of utter devastation. There was nothing, he felt, that could cut through the despair and blame he felt at his sister’s death. He’d been spared when everyone had thought he’d die.
His mother couldn’t hide her devastation at the loss of her only daughter, and at each tortured look she directed at her son, Felix felt the guilt all over again.
Rolling onto his stomach, Felix put his face into the pillow where Hope’s head had rested and breathed in her scent. It was a bolder scent than he remembered. The innocent Miss Merriweather of two years ago had smelled of something light and floral. The sensual and experienced Miss Merriweather who had come to him last night had smelled of something more exotic, but that had not lessened his desire.
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