He considered it, his stare bold and assessing.
“No,” he said finally. “I still would have wanted it.”
She squared her shoulders, wondering suddenly why she was so eager to debate the subject of fidelity with him, when she was already well aware of his opinions on the matter.
She supposed Charlotte’s account of his past and her unremitting belief in his character had cast a shadow of doubt over her own assessment of his values and principles.
Vincent was still standing very close, looking down at her face. “Do you think you would ever change your mind?” he quietly asked.
“About what?”
His gaze was riveted on her eyes, then it moved down the length of her body. “About becoming my mistress. We are, after all, bound to each other forever by a legal contract, and also through a child we have created together. Why not seek some pleasure out of the partnership? And I guarantee there would be pleasure, Cassandra—a tremendous amount of it, in fact. You know that as well as I do.”
Suddenly, her breathing was out of control and her heart was in a frenzy. She backed away from him. “You promised you would not require that of me. You agreed to it in writing and signed your name with witnesses.”
“I am not requiring it,” he said. “I am merely offering my services to you, if you should decide at any time that you would enjoy them.”
“Your services?”
“Yes, I would satisfy all your desires. You could call on me, day or night, to relieve the heated tensions of your womanly urges. And I know you have them, Cassandra, even when you are trying very hard to convince yourself you do not. This business of never taking a lover…” He shook his head at the notion. “You would be miserable.”
She felt a swirling jumble of both anger and excitement deep inside. One minute she was beginning to believe what Charlotte had said—that he was a caring and constant man, merely caught in a difficult predicament because of his father. But then he said something like this, and all she could see was the wild, sexual rake. “You promised, Vincent.”
“Yes, I did, but on the day I agreed to your very proper and unimaginative contractual terms, I was not feeling particularly adventurous. I had just brought a fiancée home and learned I had sired an illegitimate child. Hence I crushed the memory of how dazzling you were to me that night a year ago—so dazzling, in fact, that I could not even control my orgasm.”
“Which orgasm?” she angrily asked. “There were quite a few, if I recall.”
He ran the back of a finger along her cheek. “Yes, there were a number of very remarkable ones that I would not mind repeating.”
Her chest was heaving from the effect of his touch. Her legs felt heavy and warm, and she knew if she did not soon regain control of herself, she might very well end up in his arms.
She hated that she was so weak when it came to her desires. She simply could not conquer them.
“I would be carrying another child of yours within the space of a week,” she argued, trying to focus on the more practical and dangerous implications of such an arrangement.
“Yes, you probably would.” He thought about it for a moment, then ran the tip of his finger across the soft line of her jaw. “But what would it matter? We are legally bound to each other for life. Remember? You could fill this entire house with children if you wanted to. You could give June brothers and sisters to play with, and I could enjoy a lifetime filled with phenomenal orgasms.”
Good God! She laughed out loud with shock. “I believe you’ve gone mad!”
His voice was humorless. “Maybe it runs in the family.”
He cupped her head in his hand and pulled her to him. His mouth covered hers in a hard, deep, demanding kiss that made her go weak at the knees.
Cassandra let out a tiny whimper of surprise. God help her, the taste of his lips lit her on fire. He deepened the kiss, devoured her with his mouth, and she reveled in the delicious sensation of his tongue mingling hotly with hers. His lips were soft and full and wet. He tasted better than wine. He was so much of a man and knew just how to fire her passions.
Suddenly all she wanted was to feel that wild insanity again, to drop to her knees right here and pull this man down to the floor—to feel the weight of his body, heavy upon hers. She wanted to slide her hands up under his clothes and wrap her legs around his hips.
Moaning with hunger, he backed her up against the bookshelves. His hands roamed over her body as he kissed and tongued her neck. He was aggressive and strong, his body thrusting. And her pulse was pounding with desire, even when she knew it was wrong. It was so very wrong. It was not what she wanted.
“No, Vincent,” she said breathlessly, struggling to bring her desires under control. “We have to stop…”
She could not let herself surrender to this. She could not let him do this to her!
He took her face in both his hands and looked into her eyes. “Not yet,” he ground out, then pressed his lips to hers again and kissed her with stormy impatience.
His hand slid down over her hip and gathered her skirts in a fist. She could feel them lifting…
Her body was exploding with white-hot, sizzling excitement, but she forced herself to push him back with all her might. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “We had an agreement!”
His eyes burned with desire and frustration. Clearly he was not pleased to have had his passions so quickly curtailed. “You of all people should know I cannot be trusted.”
“Yes, I certainly do know it. I am even more clear on the point now!”
Taking a step closer, he sneered devilishly at her. “You can’t deny that you want this, Cassandra. I felt it in your body just now. You remember how amazing it was that night, and you want it again. Admit it.”
She backed away from him along the bookcases, impelled by a torrential flood of fury. “You’re going to have to learn to enjoy your orgasms with your wife, Lord Vincent, because I will not become your mistress.”
“Why not? What stops you? You’ve already given up your position in society and do not plan to reclaim it. Your identity and the circumstances of your life will be a secret. You can be free to do what you wish and simply enjoy yourself.”
“So you believe that makes it all well and good? As long as no one knows about my adulterous life, it will not be unseemly? It will not really exist?” She pointed at her heart. “I would know, Vincent, and I would have to live with my dishonor, not to mention the fact that I would be sharing you with another woman. I’ve already done that once before in my own marriage, and I assure you I did not enjoy it.”
He said nothing. He simply stood there in the center of the room, staring at her with concern.
She was unable to stop her tirade. “On top of that,” she continued, “I would not only be sharing you with your wife, but all your other transient lovers as well. You seem to forget that I know what kind of man you are. You enjoy women too much, and that is not the life I want. It would break my heart.” She turned her back on him. “I cannot believe I am even discussing this with you.”
She walked out of the library and left the house through the back door, which led to a path across the lawn, down to the lake. She forged it at a brisk pace, her skirts whipping between her legs with every rapid, agitated stride.
How could she have imagined this would be possible? God help her, it was as if this man had been dropped into her life intentionally, for the purpose of testing her resolve to be sensible.
He was no gentle foe. He had the power to make her forget everything she believed was right. She had just let him arouse her passions, for pity’s sake! The kiss had been absolutely intoxicating.
The path came to an end, and she stopped on the wide lawn, acutely aware of her surroundings all of a sudden—the sheer beauty of the house and garden and the lake at the bottom of the hill. She looked up at the blue sky, breathed in the scent of spring lilacs, heard a mockingbird s
inging somewhere in the distance.
Was this beautiful house and property all part of the larger temptation that was Vincent and everything he offered? Was it part of the test? Could she be bought?
“Cassandra!”
She jumped when she heard him call her name. Turning, she saw him walk with purpose down the gravel path toward her, hat in hand. When he reached the end of the path and stepped onto the grass, he was out of breath. She braced herself for whatever depravity was about to come pouring out of his mouth next.
“I apologize for what just happened,” he said, knocking her completely off balance yet again with words she had not expected. “I did make a promise to you. I gave you my word that I would not ask you for anything more than a chance to spend time with June. I should not have said those things in the library. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I am a devil and a rake. I know I am, but the strange thing is—it has never bothered me before now.” He paused, turning his hat over in his hands and looking down at it. “I am beginning to wonder if you were placed into my life for some clear purpose, to give me a chance to behave honorably for once—as honorably as a man can behave with a former lover who has born him an illegitimate child.”
She had no idea what to say. All she could do was stand there in the hot, bright sunshine, looking down at the ground, realizing that his thoughts about being tested mirrored her own.
“I know I do not deserve it,” he said, “but can you forgive me?”
She looked up hesitantly. “I don’t know, Vincent. You say and do the most wicked things sometimes.”
For a long moment he was quiet, and then, when he spoke, his voice was resigned. “I shall offer no excuses, because even when I recognize how you value your honor, I still let you bring out the devil in me. I am learning that lust is a very powerful thing.”
“But you are no stranger to it.”
“You are wrong there, Cassandra. I am a stranger to what exists between us. It is the reason I did not read your letter a year ago, and why I avoided you—so that I would not run the risk of falling in love with you.”
She was speechless.
He wiped the back of his hand across the sparkling perspiration on his forehead and squinted down at the lake. “All I know is that there was an extraordinary spark between us from the beginning. Don’t you remember how it was that night?”
“Of course I do,” she confessed. “It made me insane—not just that night, but in the weeks following, when you would not see me.”
“I was a cad.”
“Yes, you were.”
He sighed. “I must ask you again, Cassandra, can you forgive me? You are the mother of my child. I cannot bear for you to think me hopeless. I do not want to be hopeless.”
The breeze blew gently at the ribbons on her hat. She could not believe he had just said all these things to her. She’d convinced herself she had imagined the gentler side of him from that night a year ago, and that he did not care what anyone thought of him. She was wrong. It appeared he did care for something.
“A lot has happened since that night,” she said. “Our lives have changed and fate has placed us in a difficult predicament. You are engaged to another woman, you do not wish to let your brothers down, and I quite frankly do not wish to allow myself to believe that I could ever trust you. I would prefer to remain on guard.”
“Cassandra…”
“We have each made our mistakes and now must live with the consequences. As for myself, I would like to do so without any further transgressions.”
“I should resent you,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because you make me want to be a better man, when it is so much easier not to care one way or another.”
They started walking slowly down to the lake, glancing tentatively at each other while taking in the beauty of the surrounding vista.
After a time, Cassandra slipped her arm through his and gave him a tiny, cautious smile. “Perhaps there can be some hope for this arrangement,” she said, feeling her animosity toward him begin to soften. “But please, do not say those wicked things to me again, Vincent. Or do not kiss me again, because I cannot bear it. Truly, I cannot. If you do, I will have to make sure we do not see each other—because you are right. The spark is still there and I find you difficult to resist…There, are you happy now? I have confessed it.”
“I wouldn’t call it happy,” he replied as he placed his hand upon hers to lead the way down to the water. “But I have learned not to hope for happiness. It is inevitable that one will end up disappointed.”
Chapter 13
I sometimes wonder what is more powerful—the burning intensity of lust, or a quieter affection that blooms slowly over time. I certainly know which of the two is more meaningful, but meaning is not always what guides us through life. Sometimes we are victims of our impulses.
—from the journal of Cassandra Montrose,
Lady Colchester,
June 23, 1874
Three days later Vincent made good on his commitment to Cassandra and June with the purchase of Langley Hall and all the surrounding acreage. The deal would be closed the day after his wedding, when he’d receive five thousand pounds from his father just for saying “I do.”
Over the next two weeks, he traveled to and from London to take care of various details regarding the purchase of the house—such as the acquisition of furniture and the hiring of servants. His mother, his fiancée, and the Duchess of Swinburne also traveled to London to make purchases for the wedding, which gave him the freedom to visit his daughter as often as he pleased.
More often than not he found June in the pram in the gardens, sleeping soundly beneath an organza cover, while Cassandra pulled weeds from the earth or planted new seeds. Sometimes he found his daughter lying on her belly on a quilt under the oak tree, while Cassandra sat beside her with an open book in her hands.
Through it all, he was perhaps most pleased to discover that she chose not to disappear when his coach pulled up in front of the house at the prearranged time. Rather, she would take June into her arms and greet him on the steps—always eager to place her into his outstretched hands.
Over those busy few weeks, he also discovered that he could be an affectionate, doting father, and even a gentleman, too—and that it was not quite as difficult as he’d imagined it would be. He was surprisingly capable of resisting his attraction to Cassandra, and when he contemplated the reasons why, he understood that it was more than a mere matter of being in breach of their contract. The truth of the matter was—he did not want to lose what was becoming a comfortable friendship.
So they spent many hours together in a congenial, companionable manner, strolling down to the river or through the Pembroke forests with the puppy, the core focus of their conversations always one safe thing—little June.
After two weeks of perfectly respectable contractual visits—during which neither Cassandra nor Vincent so much as mentioned their passionate kiss at Langley Hall—Cassandra managed to convince herself that everything was going to work out. She even began to accept the fact that she enjoyed Vincent’s company. She allowed herself to look forward to his visits, because despite their turbulent past, he was the one person in the world who understood and shared her infatuation with her baby. He, too, was enamored and delighted with every little gurgle and burp, every cry, every dazzling, delightful smile.
As for the kiss, she forced herself to forget about it. She put it out of her mind completely, pretended it never happened.
And so, on those slow, lazy days of early summer when the air was humid and heavy with the fragrance of lilacs and roses, she and Vincent took great pleasure in watching June sleep on the blanket, which they spread out on the grass in a shady grove of sycamores beyond the garden farthest from the house. That particular spot soon became their customary destination at the same time each afternoon when June was ready for her nap.
“Tell me about your marriage,” Vincent said one warm afternoon, while J
une slept and Molly bounced about nearby, chasing butterflies. “How did you meet your husband?”
Cassandra stretched out on her back in the sun, shaded her eyes with a hand and crossed her legs at the ankles. “It was all arranged by my parents, and I was simply presented to him at a dinner party. He was looking for someone young who could provide him with children. It all happened very quickly, and I was rather swept away. He was twelve years older than I, and I imagined him to be very dashing and charming. I truly believed I was in love.”
“Only believed?”
“It wasn’t long after we were married that I discovered he was in love with another woman—a woman he had known when he was a young man but had not been free to marry because she was already someone else’s wife. They had not seen each other for many years, and it was shortly after he married me that they met again and became involved with each other. She was a widow by then and was free to enjoy my husband’s attentions. I am quite certain their affair would still be going on today if he were still alive.”
She paused a moment, watching a blackbird soar high above in the clear blue sky. “It was devastating and humiliating to me, because when I married him, I truly wanted it to be perfect. I wanted a happy, successful marriage, but I understand now that he only ever wanted her. She was the great love of his life.”
Vincent sat up and rested his arm on a knee. “Sometimes I wonder if there are people in the world who are simply meant to be together, people who are connected to each other somehow. Even if they go away and are forgotten for years and years, they are never really gone, and if they reappear, which in all likelihood they will—”
“The connection is still there,” Cassandra finished for him, “as strong as ever, as if not a day has passed.”
She was surprised to hear him speak this way.
He plucked a blade of grass and wrapped it around his finger. “And what does one do if that person is forbidden?” He gazed directly at her. “As this woman was with your husband?”
The Mistress Diaries Page 14