A Measured Risk

by Natasha Blackthorne

  “Yes, I suppose you are correct.” She was grateful for this bit of reality to cling to.

  “It is my own personal driver. He drove carts and carriages in the war, in all kinds of situations and unfavourable conditions.”

  “He did?” she asked with some surprise.

  “Yes, he’s very competent.”

  “And you kept him at Eastwood all this time, just waiting on your whim?”

  “He was up at my estate and just arrived a few days ago. I thought it would be a comfort to you, when the time came to ride in a carriage.”

  Warmth curled into her heart. He always made sure she felt safe. He always remembered. He always thought of her. He never forgot. She looked up at him. “Yes, it is very comforting.”

  She forced her trembling lips to smile.

  He stared down at her and cupped her face. His gaze grew tender yet somehow more intense than ever. “You are so radiantly beautiful.”

  Her heart grew a little less heavy and that was how she made it through. Moment by moment.

  * * * *

  Jon lifted his glass to his lips and took a deep drink, but the burn couldn’t chase the chill out of his blood. He had two days until Anne went back to Whitecross Hall. He kept remembering how pleasant she had tried to be during the ride from the cottage, yet her hand had gripped his until her knuckles had turned white and his had gone numb.

  She’d made progress but she was nowhere near over her fears. And she was determined to travel to Ireland, alone but for the company of her over-solicitous, and, to all appearances, bird-witted abigail.

  And she wouldn’t even discuss the possibility of Jon escorting her.

  “Won’t know for a few days.” Kean’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  “What?” Jon asked.

  “The dog.”

  “Yes, correct,” Jon said, distractedly.

  He had assisted Kean and his valet in the amputation, which had brought back gruesome memories of battlefield surgery tents.

  “She might die of putrid fever yet, or blood loss, who knows?” Kean sat in the chair opposite. “When does Lady Cranfield’s carriage arrive in Bedford?”

  “Sunday or Monday. They will send word here.”

  “You may as well stay here and wait. The final night of my house party is tonight. I had not expected to have the pleasure of hosting you. I had thought you were going to stay holed up with your lovely lady.” Kean took a deep sip of his drink. Then he chuckled. “How do you always manage to do it? I had my eye on her, but I thought to play the gentleman and wait for her mourning period to end.”

  Jon’s jaw tensed. It took real effort to make it relax. He attempted to keep his tone light, “You liar. You didn’t even notice her before I did. Your taste has always gone to the overblown tarts.”

  Kean grinned. “Like Jane? You were interested in tasting her delights the last time you were here.”

  Jane Macgregor. Former laundress, now Kean’s latest mistress. Laughing green eyes, dark red hair, fine ivory skin and a lush, large-breasted figure. Even now, his cock twitched with a pang of remembered lust. “And you declined me, my friend.”

  “Only because you had nothing interesting to trade in exchange. That situation has certainly reversed itself. God, that honey-coloured skin of hers. I think I’d give a year’s worth of rents to see all of her bared and lying on my bed.”

  Sudden raw emotion surged through Jon’s blood. The urge to plant his fist into Kean’s face just for having the audacity to ask. He took a deep breath. And then another. Kean wasn’t asking for anything that hadn’t happened between them before. They had always shared their women.

  “She’s a true lady,” Jon said.

  Kean’s brows shot up. “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning it’s not going to happen.”

  “I understand. She’s still shy and you’re not going to press her on it, even though you could. I saw the way she looked at you in the vestibule when your back was turned, as if you were some sort of divine being. She’d do anything you asked.”

  “I mean it’s never going to happen.”

  Kean smiled, humour lighting his green eyes. “You mean it’s not going to happen so long as she’s yours. And we both know how quickly you tire of your toys. Maria is here.”

  “I thought she wasn’t coming.”

  “Apparently someone alerted her to your little flirtation with Lady Cranfield and your subsequent disappearance, along with that of the lady, has apparently aroused her suspicions.”

  “Maria doesn’t care what I do.”

  “Well, she showed up here, asking me all sorts of questions.” Kean’s words added to Jon’s sense of things getting out of control.

  Anne was set to leave him. He had two days to convince her to agree to tryst with him during the winter. Now Maria was here to complicate things.

  * * * *

  Jon sat in the uncomfortable, hideously puce and celadon wingchair, watching Anne step out of the china hip tub. Steam rose from honeyed skin glistening with a thousand beads of water.

  I’d give a year’s worth of rents to see all of her bared and lying on my bed.

  Kean’s words kept reverberating in his head. And it wasn’t only Kean who would feel that way. Any man with eyes in his head and red blood in his veins would long to possess her. Who would the next man be? Kean? Highsmith? Her overseer in Ireland?

  He could not let her take that trip to Ireland alone. Yet she remained so determined. However, he couldn’t just snap his fingers and order her not to go. He could not stop her from going. Could not stop her from slipping out of his grasp. He tilted the glass to his lips and finished the liquor in one swallow.

  He didn’t just want her for the winter. He wanted her for a mistress. Long-term.

  But his life and hers were very different. How would she fit into his world in London? Maybe she didn’t have to, but would she be appalled by it? How could he make her understand and appreciate the richness of pleasures such a life could afford?

  “Goodness,” Anne said.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “The way you’re drinking that brandy. As if you were dying of thirst.”

  Didn’t she realise she was the one driving him to it with her insistence on ending their affaire so quickly? Maybe she did. Maybe she took a delight in driving him mad with this consuming need for her. He fixed her with a steady stare. “Do you fancy that I am so besotted with your pretty arse that I’ll stand for you scrutinising my vices?”

  Instantly, her expression closed. He could have bitten his tongue off. He opened his mouth to smooth things over but she flounced away and went behind the screen. Depriving him of her beauty. His wench didn’t appreciate how much she needed him. She didn’t fully understand the depth of their connection. How easily he could control her and why that was the case. She didn’t understand that she was his.

  Perhaps it’s time she learned.

  Maybe it was time he showed her the depth to his world of pleasures.

  He stood and went to the screen and walked behind it.

  She glanced up at him.

  “I think you forget yourself, Nan.” He took her arm. “Lower your eyes.”

  She gaped at him. “We’re not at the cottage now. I don’t owe you any obedience.”

  He tightened his grasp and turned a stern look on her. “Our month is not yet up. It won’t trouble me in the least to turn you over my knee again.”

  She flushed instantly.

  “And you can cry out all you want. No one will heed you in this house. Not this week.”

  She glanced down, lowering her gaze as she should. Her nipples had beaded. He couldn’t resist cupping her breast. The tight peak went even harder against his palm. He should crop her and show her what it felt like to really submit. But right now, he wasn’t sure of his own feelings or his control over them.

  “Kean is hosting a supper party tonight. We shall attend.”

  “I can’t be seen here.”


  “You may wear a mask or a veil. Most ladies who attend his supper parties do.”

  “Exactly what kind of party is this to be?” Her voice trembled.

  “The kind a lady wouldn’t be caught dead attending without a mask.”

  “Please, don’t ask this.”

  “I insist.”

  “Why must you insist on this?”

  “Because it pleases me. And you’ll do it. You know you will.”

  “You said you’d never humiliate me publicly,” she whispered so low, that he had to bend to hear her. The scent of lavender and roses wafted up from her hair. He let his gaze roam over her coolly, lingering on the rosy tips of her breasts and the sable shadow between her legs. Desire flared in his blood, lengthening and thickening his cock. Fuelling his ire. “You are so careful to remember my obligations to you. But not so apt to do the same in return.”

  She shifted on her feet. “You promised—else I should never have agreed.”

  “You have agreed. You were dying to agree, dying to be mine. But you’ll be masked tonight, so what are you so worried about?” The softness of her breast in his hand, the feel of her pebbled nipple against his palm, the throbbing in his cock, only spurred him on. “If I wanted you to go without a mask and reveal yourself to world as my mistress, you’d do it.”

  “No, no.” She looked up at him and shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”

  At her determined little look he pulled her roughly to his body. He laid his other hand over her collarbone. Her pulse quickened under his hand. “Shall I prove it to you? Shall I make you attend tonight as Lady Cranfield, my leman for the whole world to see?”

  “Please, don’t,” she said, biting her lip. The pleading look in her heavily lashed, blue eyes tore at his heart. He was behaving like a monster. What the devil was he letting her drive him to? He was supposed to be the one in control.

  Still, he had to teach her a lesson.

  “You want to go, you know you do. You want to see those things that have been denied you because you are a lady. But foremost, you’ll go to please me.”

  She glanced down. He could feel her battling the temptation as if it were a tangible thing she wrestled with.

  She flashed him a rebellious glance. “If I don’t like it, I am leaving immediately.”

  “You’ll be a good girl and stay as long as I will it.” Sternly, he held her gaze until she looked down again. “Kean’s going to have Mrs Beavins find you a mask and something to wear. When she brings them, thank her and let her help you dress. You may rest here until then.” He let her go, turned away and walked towards the door. He paused with his hand on the knob. “Oh, and one more thing. Kean usually serves a special champagne punch at these parties. Don’t drink more than two cups. It’s quite potent the way he makes it and you won’t be used to it.”

  * * * *

  “Well, you don’t look very happy to see me.” Maria pouted prettily. “And over four weeks and no word from you. Not even one of your terse notes.”

  Jon unwound her hands from his neck. “I’ve been preoccupied of late.”

  She studied him with her large, unnervingly pale eyes and nodded. “So I hear.”

  He turned away from her, went to the sideboard of his chamber and poured a brandy.

  “Kean says you have brought your own entertainment to his little party. A mere girl.” Her tone sounded both defensive and accusing.

  His guts tightened.

  “It doesn’t concern you, Maria.” He tossed the brandy back in one drink. “Our wedding shan’t be affected.”

  “Oh, no? Then why does Kean tell me I should be afraid?”

  Damn. It wasn’t any of Kean’s business. “Perhaps he says that because he wishes to gain your wealth for himself.”

  “You know there’s no threat of that. I’d never wed that damned commoner upstart.”

  He turned to face her. “Well, then, we’ve nothing to worry over. Either of us.”

  She licked her lips, slowly, with deliberation. That full, red mouth—she did such devilishly skilled things with that mouth. She stretched, moving her lush body with feline grace until she was reclining against the pillows at the head of the bed. Her luxurious chestnut tresses fanned out, a pretty contrast to the rich crimson bedspread. Her large breasts seemed ready to spill from her low-cut bodice. She smiled at him with worldly, wicked promise.

  He’d wanted Anne madly but had been forced to withhold his attentions because of his angry feelings with her.

  It’d been months since he’d had Maria in his bed. His body reacted with enthusiasm, his erection pressing the fall of his trousers. Well, he certainly had time to avail himself.

  And they had privacy. The door was locked.

  But he didn’t have the will.

  He shook his head, ever so slightly.

  Her mouth dropped open.

  She pulled herself to a seating position with far less sensual grace. Then she raised her brows and caressed the double strand of pearls at her neck. She laughed with a catch in her throat. “I think when you start taking mere girls to your bed, then I should worry.” She raised her left hand and wagged her fingers. “We’re not wed yet.”

  “She’s hardly a girl.”

  “No?”

  “She’s a widow.”

  “Well, Kean tells me you declined his offer to share his little doxy.”

  “What of it?”

  “The last time he declined your request to have her, you said you were going to persuade him. You said that you and I would share her.”

  “So I did…” God, that night of excesses in the spring suddenly seemed a lifetime ago.

  “Jon, there has been some talk about you and a certain dowager Lady Cranfield. Lady Scott wrote to me.”

  He slammed the glass upon the sidebar. “Damn it. Will it be this way each and every time I find a little amusement?”

  “Well, I don’t happen to think it is just amusement.”

  “It will be whatever I will it to be. And it is none of your concern.”

  Maria laughed. “Oh, always so arrogant, so in control. You will command your heart as you command everything else. Listen to me, very carefully, my Earl of Ruel. I shall not demand fidelity. But I also will not tolerate any woman held above me. Especially not some foreign merchant’s granddaughter.”

  “I won’t be dictated to at all, Maria. If I choose to keep her as a mistress—for the remainder of my life—I shall.”

  Good God, had he really just said that? He must have. Maria turned at least three shades paler. But yes, he did want Anne forever. He was sure of it. Shaken, he turned and poured himself a half-glass more of brandy. He downed it—without thought. Then he frowned. It wasn’t like him to drink to excess but he felt so out of balance lately. It was like living in a stranger’s skin. Anne seemed to bring out the most impulsive, rash decisions in himself.

  He’d had everything settled. Under control. A plan for the remainder of his life. A long-term mistress hadn’t been part of the equation.

  But yes, he was absolutely certain of it. He did want Anne forever. Well, why not? Why couldn’t he have his settled, uncomplicated marriage and children with Maria—and keep Anne by his side too?

  He knew Maria. She wanted to be a countess. She also wanted her freedom. She wouldn’t throw all of that away over some minor pique that he might hold some other woman higher in his esteem and affections.

  Convincing Anne would prove the more thorny problem. Devilishly thorny.

  He would worry about that later. He sat his glass down and turned back to Maria.

  “I am going to keep her as a mistress, Maria, there’s nothing you can do about it. If you can’t accept my will, then now is the time to say so.”

  “I could be persuaded to accept her. It would also give you the chance to make it up to me for ruining things with Kean’s little trollop. You could share your darling Lady Cranfield with me. I remember her from her seasons. She’s quite the beauty.”

&nbs
p; That had the power to stir his blood. But it wasn’t a feasible scenario. “She’s young and quite sensitive.”

  “Weren’t we all once?”

  “Yes, I suppose we were.”

  “You could convince her. You always were able to make your chits do whatever you wanted them to do.”

  He chuckled softly. “Is that why you really want to marry me, Maria? Because I can keep a steady supply of women in your bed?”

  “You cannot complain. It’s always been enjoyable for everyone, hasn’t it? And I know you, Jon. The sheer perversity of bedding your intended wife and your beloved mistress is simply too delicious.”

  Maria knew him. Knew him far better than Anne did.

  Well, Anne was going to have to get used to his ways. All of them. He wasn’t going to change for anyone.

  * * * *

  Dressed in a yellow muslin gown and a dark green mask adorned with canary yellow feathers, Anne sat in the drawing room. Ensconced on a divan in the far corner, she was still fuming over how Ruel had all but dumped her off after supper.

  “You’ll be fine,” he had said.

  “What if someone—”

  “They won’t.” He grinned, showing his white, even teeth against his tanned face, that earlier cruel light glittering in his azure eyes. “Not unless they want to face me at dawn.”

  His restlessness seemed to crackle on the air. She almost imagined he wished it to happen. She’d never seen him like this.

  He’d lightly gripped the base of her throat. “You look like a queen in that gown. Every man who sees you, wants you. But even were I not here, none would dare approach you for fear your icy exterior would freeze their cock off.”

  She made a choked gasp.

  “I am the only one, aren’t I, Nan? The only one who can thaw you.” His hand tightened. She swallowed against his hold. “Aren’t I?”

  Wetness slid down between her thighs. She suppressed a moan.

  He chuckled softly, released her throat and then put a finger to the tip of her nose. “No more than two cups of punch for you, wench.”