A Suitable Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  ‘You said it for effect.’

  ‘Is that so?’ He led her out of the hall, up the grand staircase which had aroused such open-mouthed awe in her ever since she had been a child, along the corridor, hung on either side with daunting portraits of his various ancestors, and pushed open the door at the far end. The door to his bedroom.

  This room, at least, had not suffered under the hands of Martha. Whilst most of the other rooms had been decorated in various floral patterns, this one was starkly masculine. The walls were blue—a vibrant blue which should have looked hideous but in fact looked rich and inviting. The bedroom furniture was of dark wood and the huge bay windows looked out over the extensive gardens and fields.

  Suzanne, her fingers still linked with his, fell back at the doorway.

  ‘My bedroom,’ he said unnecessarily, turning to her. He stroked the side of her face and, where he touched, her skin tingled.

  ‘You really want to marry me?’ she asked, and he laughed under his breath.

  ‘You make it sound as though I’m letting myself in for something horrendous.’ His voice was like a caress. She couldn’t think straight when he spoke like that.

  ‘You mean that you’d marry me just because you want to sleep with me?’ she asked in a high voice.

  ‘Would that be so shocking?’

  She felt her body, which had been floating somewhere in the clouds, plummet back to earth with a bang.

  ‘Yes. Yes, it would.’ She tried to tug her hand out of his and he kept it firmly clasped between his fingers.

  ‘In that case,’ he said, moving towards her and tangling his fingers in her long hair, ‘what about if I told you that I intend to marry you because I’ve fallen madly in love with you. Would that do?’

  ‘You’ve fallen in love with me?’

  ‘There you go. Repeating everything I say. A very bad habit.’

  ‘Please, Dane,’ she whispered, ‘don’t tease.’

  ‘Tease? Oh, my darling.’ He kissed her, gently, then with growing force, his tongue exploring her mouth, and she groaned. ‘I’ve never been more serious in my life. Years ago, when we first knew one another, I thought you an interesting little thing. How was I to know that you’d mature into a witch and place this irrational spell on me?’

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. He loved her! Her head was singing and everything inside seemed to have taken glorious flight.

  He lifted her off her feet and placed her in the centre of his king-size bed, then he lay down beside her, propped up on one elbow so that he could look at her.

  ‘I don’t know when I first realised that I was attracted to you. I think that something inside me stirred the very first time I laid eyes on you in that deplorable bedsit of yours. I hadn’t gone intending to bring you back with me, but I knew there and then that I had to. I tried to tell myself that it was all purely altruistic, but I found myself thinking about you more and more, and whenever I was with you my eyes kept straying and my thoughts followed suit.’

  ‘But I was fat!’ Suzanne said happily. What she really wanted to say was that she had felt exactly the same way, but she wanted him to carry on talking, too.

  ‘Don’t ever think that your size doesn’t make you intensely attractive,’ he murmured, unbuttoning her blouse and slipping his hand into her bra to scoop out her full breast. She obligingly unfastened it at the front and he groaned.

  ‘When you walked in on that wretched party dressed in next to nothing and all those men couldn’t take their eyes off you, I felt that I was going mad with jealousy. I had never been jealous before. I had always considered it a particularly puerile emotion, but I was seething. I wanted to shove you back into your bedroom and force you to change into something else. Some sackcloth, maybe.’

  He licked between her breasts, then her nipples. She felt them swell and harden under his moist tongue and she pressed his head down.

  When he stopped to take off his clothes, his movements quick and urgent, as though he could hardly bear not to be beside her, she likewise stripped off hers and basked naked under his scrutiny.

  ‘Instead you confronted me in the kitchen and bit my head off,’ she said contentedly, and he smiled drily.

  ‘I also, if I recall, tried to get you into bed with me.’

  ‘I wanted to,’ Suzanne confessed.

  ‘I know. That was the crazy thing. I knew you wanted me and it was driving me insane, the fact that you just wouldn’t give in.’

  He stroked her legs and she parted them so that he could feel her desire for him against the palm of his hand.

  ‘Don’t you think, as do Angela and Martha, that I was just holding out until the price was right?’ She tried to sound light, but her voice was tinged with bitterness and he kissed her lightly at the side of her mouth, while his fingers worked her into a passion that was veering on losing control.

  ‘It never crossed my mind,’ he said truthfully. ‘You hardly tried to captivate me, did you, with that sharp tongue of yours? Besides, Angela and Martha can only see in people the traits that they see in themselves. Angela wanted me for my money, as Martha wanted my father for his. And got him.’

  ‘And you left because you disliked her.’

  ‘I left because she made a pass at me,’ he said flatly. ‘My father was still alive at the time, and the woman came into my bedroom one night and tried to persuade me that it would be a good idea to make love. The only reason I stayed on for those last few months was because of Dad. As soon as he died, I couldn’t wait to leave the house.’

  Suzanne looked at him with horror.

  ‘Is that when you decided to come back and buy the company off her?’

  ‘I decided to do that,’ he said, looking at her wryly, ‘when I found out how quickly it was going into decline. Dad built that company up single-handedly. Martha was treating it like a board game, dismissing people on personal grounds because they said something she didn’t care for. Although, I have to admit that there was an element of vindictiveness in my actions as well.’

  ‘And you very nearly didn’t do it.’

  ‘But I did, my darling, I did. Now, no more talk. There are better things to do.’ He smiled, his eyes darkening, and they made love with an intensity that left her breathless.

  This time there was no holding back, no little voices in her head telling her that she was doing the wrong thing. All those little voices had at last been silenced.

  He cupped her breasts in his hands, kissing them, licking them, moving lower so that his mouth trailed along her stomach, down towards that place where all desire began and ended, and she moaned and writhed against his exploring mouth.

  She was breathing quickly, eyes closed, when he finally thrust into her with a gentle rhythm at first, then harder and quicker, building up a crescendo of fulfilment.

  She felt, at last, as though she had finally found what she had been looking for, she had finally experienced that deep communion of spirit that made everything meaningful.

  She turned on her side towards him, stroking his face, enjoying her new-found freedom to express her emotions instead of having to hide them away under wraps in case he caught sight of them.

  ‘Do you know,’ he said lazily as she traced the familiar lines of his face with her finger, ‘I would have throttled you if you had carried out your hare-brained plan to find somewhere else to live?’

  ‘Would you?’ She smiled and felt like the cat that has got the cream.

  ‘No, I would have followed you to whatever hole you had found and made an almighty scene until you were forced to come back with me.’

  ‘How caveman,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘Shameful, isn’t it?’ He guided her hand to him and she circled his throbbing masculinity with her fingers, moving her hand, learning all the time, and liking the uncontrolled desire that made him lie back and yield to the desire she was capable of arousing.

  After a while, he put his hand over hers and she knelt over him, leaning forward so th
at her heavy breasts dangled above him, and he took one nipple into his mouth and sucked hard on it, pulling it into his mouth, and she cried out in pleasure.

  When he buried his head between her breasts, she eased her body and slipped onto him, and, like a novice who has discovered the key to everything, she made love to him with the wonder and abandonment of love.

  ‘You wanton thing,’ she heard him murmur in a thick voice as she arched back and he took her breasts in his hands, caressing them. And then they were united like a single being, fusing mind and soul, and she closed her eyes the better to enjoy the sweet sensations that filled every minute pore of her body.

  It wasn’t until darkness began to creep into the bedroom that she realised how long they had lain together.

  ‘I love you,’ she told him soberly, and he smiled at her. ‘Not that I’m telling you anything that you don’t already know.’ She was lying on her back, her hair fanning out around her in tangled curls. ‘I wanted to die when you told me that I loved you, that you knew I did.’

  ‘And I wanted to shout it out for the whole world to hear. I was so damned smart putting two and two together as far as you were concerned. Not so smart as far as I was concerned.’ He paused, and then added, ‘By the way, you never said whether you accepted my proposal of marriage or not’

  ‘After you’ve been so persuasive? I don’t think I could possibly refuse.’

  ‘I’m afraid this will accelerate your moving back up here,’ he told her. ‘I shall keep the flat on in London, but I want to return here to sort out the company.’

  Suzanne didn’t answer but she couldn’t have been more thrilled by his decision.

  She had felt, driving out of the city and away from the constant bustle, that her roots were not in London. London had served its purpose.

  ‘How do you feel about living here? In the house?’ he asked her seriously. ‘Is it too close for comfort to all your memories of your father?’

  ‘My memories are good ones,’ she said. ‘It will be perfect living here. Splendid.’

  ‘Feel free to redecorate.’ They both laughed at that as thoughts of Martha’s extravagant decorations flashed through their heads.

  ‘You might learn to like it if you lived with it for a while,’ Suzanne said, grinning.

  ‘But would I ever get accustomed to having to wear sunglasses just so that I didn’t get completely dazzled inside some of the rooms?’

  ‘True. That might be a small problem.’

  She thought of decorating, of being mistress of this great house which even as the chauffeur’s daughter she had loved. What would her father have said if he could have seen them now? He would, she thought, have been happy. He would have been happy with any avenue down which her life took her. She would never alter that cottage in the grounds and when their children grew up they would know the joy of having it there, being able to use it when they wanted.

  ‘How did you feel, seeing Martha leave this place?’ he asked, interrupting her thoughts, and she considered the question with a small frown.

  ‘I felt that she had been a very silly woman,’ Suzanne told him, sliding her eyes across to his. ‘She married for the wrong reasons and then compounded the sin by mismanaging everything after your father died.

  ‘I think, in a way, that she almost couldn’t help herself. She found herself in possession of all his wealth and power, with no one to look over her shoulder, and she abused it. Like a petty person who takes pleasure in being a bully with the security of their uniform to protect them. She treated everyone as though they were below her in the pecking order, except those who she considered were of her privileged social standing, and, of course, anyone she thought could do her a favor. I don’t think that she ever banked on you returning as an avenging angel.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Three years had made her smug.’ He sounded thoroughly satisfied that he had obliterated the smugness from Martha’s face, and she felt a lovely warmth seep through her. This was her man now, her lover, husband, friend, protector—all those things and more.

  ‘Aren’t you afraid that I might end up like that?’ she teased, kissing him lightly on his lips because she just couldn’t resist the firm, sexy curve of his mouth, and he smiled with such drowsy, tender warmth that she felt a lump of pure happiness in her throat.

  ‘You? You, my darling, are the pearl in the oyster.’ He kissed her back, his tongue lightly lingering on her mouth while his hand moved to cradle her breast. ‘I live in fear that someone else is going to discover this fact and do their damnedest to kidnap you.’

  ‘I’m big enough to fight off most potential kidnappers,’ she assured him, and he laughed.

  ‘Not to mention outtalk them. Which,’ he said, ‘brings me to my next proposal.’

  She looked at him, puzzled, and he carried on, ‘To join the company. You’ve proved a million times over that you’re as bad as me when it comes to digging down to the crux of problems. I want you to run the financial side of the company, at least until it’s back on its feet.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then, my love—’ he kissed her eyes and held her face in his hands ‘—who knows? You may not want to work any longer.’

  ‘Really? And what might be the reason for that?’

  ‘You know as well as I do.’ He ran his hand along her torso and she sighed with contentment.

  ‘Perhaps I do,’ Suzanne conceded. ‘Shall we see what we can do about that instead of talking?’

  Because nothing could be better than having his child...

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-5158-8

  A SUITABLE MISTRESS

  First North American Publication 1999.

  Copyright © 1996 by Cathy Williams.

  All rights reserved Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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