“It is my intention that we have an evening of companionship. If I wanted to sit in silence, I would dine on my own.”
Carmalina chuckled; nervously, he thought. “Mi dispiace. I am not comfortable sitting down to eat with the son of an earl. I am sorry.”
“My name is Justin, and surrounded by these walls, I am but a man. Why should it matter who my sire is?”
“I am not in your social circle, or indeed anywhere near it, yet you sought me out. Forgive me if I am suspicious of your motives.”
“You are not stupid, are you, Carmalina?”
“I am not. Is that what you wanted?”
Justin choked on a piece of fluffy, freshly baked bread. “I beg your pardon?”
“When you entered my dressing room, uninvited, to ask me to dinner, you couldn’t possibly have known what kind of dinner companion I would make. You must have had an expectation of some kind, did you not?”
Now he understood the reason for her confusion. She still didn’t know why he’d asked her to dinner, to his house. Surely she wasn’t that naive? Was it all part of her act? A woman such as she could not last long on the streets of London, not if she was that naively blind.
“I had hoped the intelligence shining from your beautiful eyes would be evident when you spoke. I did hope to get to know you.”
“Therefore my first question remains valid. Why me?”
Justin laughed. She was as subtle as a punch to the nose. Did he have to spell it out for her?
If she was going to be frank then perhaps he should be too.
“I want you to be my mistress.”
Chapter Three
Ah, now they were at the crux of the evening. The real reason he had invited her to his home. He thought she was for sale, like a common tavern harlot. Carmalina breathed deeply. “I told you I’m not that kind of woman.”
“What kind of woman are you?”
“I know what you think, my lord, that I am a singer on the stage, and thus am available to fulfill your position for trinkets and a roof over my head. For staff and a carriage? I am not that woman. I have done perfectly fine so far and I will continue to take care of myself.” She hated the half-truth and longed to pull it back, but she had morals, principles she would hold on to even when everything else failed.
With a slight incline of his head and a placating hand in the air, Justin nodded his surrender.
She was enraged that this man remained unruffled even though he’d just offered her an affare. He should be embarrassed and uncomfortable that he’d insulted her, misjudged her in such a monumental way, but there he sat, staring at her, his entrancing blue gaze cocky and sure.
Carmalina rose to her feet with every intention of storming from the room. She’d kept to her agreement and joined him for dinner and that left her conscience free to accept his earrings. Now it was time to leave.
“Please don’t go.” He moved quickly to block the doorway.
“I really must be going, my lord. I have a show tomorrow and I have to get to my bed.”
“Still hiding behind lies, bella?”
Carmalina stopped, planted her feet on the rug and put her hands on her hips. Who did he think he was? “You do not know me, my lord. Please don’t make the mistake of calling me a liar.”
The grin that graced his full lips was predatory, feral. Challenging. “I did not say you were a liar. I said you were ly-ing.”
“I really must go.”
“So you keep saying, yet you have not asked me to step aside.”
“You play games with me?” Carmalina asked incredulously. Her decision to accompany him tonight turned to regret and left a sour taste in her mouth. She should have been more forceful and sent him away. Not for the first time, she wondered what she’d got herself into. Respectable women did not go home with strangers for dinner.
Whores did.
Perhaps this is why he’d made the assumption he had?
“I do not play games, my dear. Ask me to step aside. Tell me you want to leave. I said you would not be harmed while in my home and I meant that.”
Carmalina drew herself up, her fear evaporated but only slightly. “I should like to leave. Will you please step aside?”
“I will.” He nodded. “For a kiss.”
“You said I would not be harmed.”
“I am not going to ravish you on the table in my dining room, I can assure you. Just one harmless kiss and if you still want to leave, I will put you in the carriage myself.”
Carmalina spun around so he wouldn’t catch the unladylike curse that slipped silently from her lips. His kisses would be as harmless as poison. Dangerous, with the power to make her forget herself as he’d done when he’d placed his lips to her skin in her dressing room. If she’d possessed all her faculties then, she would never have agreed to his outrageous invitation. “If you were any kind of gentleman, you wouldn’t ask this of me.”
“I never claimed that particular distinction.”
“You gave me your word.” Her head dropped forward in defeat.
“Would it really be so bad?”
Carmalina wouldn’t lie so she shook her head. His kisses were probably heavenly.
“Why do you run from me, bella?”
“It isn’t you I am running from, my lord,” she answered after a moment of hesitation, turning to bravely meet his avid gaze.
“Then what?”
Carmalina swung away again, courage lost, and walked to the opposite end of the dining table to stare into the hot coals crackling in the fireplace. “Do you have any idea what it is like to stand the way everyone else wants you to? To be squeezed and poked into a mold until there is nothing left of yourself? Nothing left of the way you saw your life heading?”
“Where did you see your life heading?”
Carmalina let a self-deprecating laugh pass through her lips. “I am six-and-twenty this past year. I saw myself married, with children, a comfortable house and a husband who loves me. Not this.” She gestured to the extravagance of the dining room, the candles, him.
“There is nothing wrong with this.” Now it was his turn to look around the room. She wondered what he saw. Did he really notice the wealth he seemed to take for granted? Was he grateful for the life of privilege he’d been born into? The bitterness in his tone when he spoke of titles and being a gentleman said he didn’t.
“Maybe not for you, but I don’t belong here.”
“And what makes you think I am any more special or deserving than you?”
Carmalina thought she noticed a flicker of something in his eyes as he spoke but it was gone before she could look closer.
“You are the son of a very powerful man. You have a family who loves you and many friends. I have a job that isn’t what it seems and a life that hangs by a tender thread.”
“Carmalina, you don’t know me. I don’t know you. That is why there are relationships between men and women, to get to know one another.”
“Is that what this would be? A rapporto?”
“Of sorts.” He nodded.
“For how long?”
“I beg your pardon?” Confusion was written all over his handsome face.
“How long will I be allowed to live under your roof?”
“That is not quite how it works.”
“You’ll have to explain it me then.” If nothing else she would stay to find out exactly what he proposed. She was hardly in a position to refuse him outright even if the idea of being someone’s mistress disgusted her.
“You want me to spell it out?” At least now the appalled look on his face matched her own.
Carmalina nodded. “I don’t have any experience with this kind of thing.”
“This kind of thing?” He groaned. “You make it sound so sordid.”
“Well, asking me to be your whore isn’t precisely romantic.”
“Mistress. Not whore.” Trentham looked wounded for a moment but it quickly passed. He raked a hand through his hair, ruffling th
e brown strands until they stood in a chaotic mess.
“To my understanding, a mistress is someone who will be available to your needs whenever you wish them to be met. Paid for with trinkets, a house, perhaps a fine piece of jewelry?”
Trentham’s nod was hesitant.
“Is that not whoring, my lord? Getting paid to provide you with sexual pleasure?” If she hadn’t been so angry, her cheeks would have flamed scarlet from her crude, frank words.
“It isn’t the same thing.”
“That is why I asked you to explain it to me. I don’t understand the difference.”
“Do you tease me?”
Carmalina met his furious stare with one of her own, her voice louder, angrier than intended. “Do you think this kind of thing happens to me every day? That because I am a singer, I am available to the highest bidder?”
“O-of course not,” he stammered. The fury faded from his eyes, his body. “Are you telling me no one has offered you before what I am now? Ever?”
Carmalina shook her head, curls falling over her shoulder in a riot of ebony silk. She looked away from his questions. She’d been propositioned before by the men of the ton but most were so outrageous she had laughed them off as dares much the same she had to him at first. Others more persistent she had given a taste of her temper so they wouldn’t be likely to return. Justin was the first she had ever said yes to.
“I’ll be damned,” she heard him mutter from the other side of the dining room as her continued silence answered his question.
Probably, she thought as her shoulders slumped. But so will I.
* * *
Justin couldn’t assemble the thoughts that crashed around in his head, bouncing from one possibility to the next. He still had a monumental task ahead of him but now that she’d revealed such a truth, the challenge became all the more appealing.
As was the woman herself.
He had to clench his fists to stop himself from reaching for her as she bit down on the flesh of her bottom lip. Even from this distance, her face hidden in shadow, Justin could tell she hadn’t yet reached a decision and he was buoyed by her uncertainty. At least she hadn’t refused him outright and run shrieking into the night. Not yet.
“Please, will you sit back down and we can finish our meal. You don’t have to make any decisions tonight.”
The look she threw his way would have flayed him alive. She obviously wasn’t appreciative of his attempt to put her at ease.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Justin held back an impatient sigh, and a smile. “Which question was that, my dear? It’s hard to think straight with an empty stomach.” The way she huffed and tapped her foot beneath the edge of her gown told him so much. His little songbird was a spitfire indeed.
“How long would you wish me to whore for you?”
“I do wish you would stop calling it that. It is not only my sexual pleasure that will be seen to.” This time he did smile as her cheeks flushed. She certainly put on a brave face and a good show. She was having a difficult time saying no. From where he stood, she would be a fool to refuse. He could offer her so much more than any theatre could.
They both took their seats and as he served her succulent duck drenched in a tangy citrus sauce, he kept silent. He needed to give her time to consider the situation even though all he wanted to do was clear the table and have her on it.
“Can I ask you a question?” Her voice startled him from carnal daydreams.
“Anything, bella.”
“Why do you do the things you do?”
“Could you be a little more specific?”
“You were born to a life of privilege, yet you act as though you don’t care for any of it.”
“Maybe I don’t.” He shrugged.
“I think you believe that, but I don’t know why.”
“You can’t save me, Carmalina.”
Her fork paused midair, the gleam in her eye dangerous. “Do you need to be saved?”
Justin didn’t like where this was going. All she had to do was say yes. He didn’t need for her to crawl into his brain and move the furniture. She would not and could not alter his thirst for revenge or estrangement any more than she could change the past.
“I won’t give in,” she promised when he didn’t answer.
“We are not at war.”
“Yet you wish for my surrender.”
“I want you in my bed. I certainly do not want your surrender.”
“I’m really not sure what to say,” she admitted with a sigh.
“Say yes.”
“No.”
“Is that a no to saying yes or a no to being my mistress?”
“I don’t know.”
Justin stared. His fingers itched to touch her again and his body cried out for her touch in return as he waited for her to continue.
“I think I should like to leave now.”
“Are you sure?” He would not force her to stay but neither would he give up.
“I really am tired.”
“Very well. Can I call on you tomorrow?”
She shook her head. “I have the next two days off from the theatre.”
“Perhaps you could give me your direction and I’ll call on you at your lodgings?”
She shook her head again, a little more vehemently this time. “That is not a good idea.”
Justin knew she was at the end of her patience for one night. He couldn’t push her any further or he would risk everything. “Very well, I’ll have the carriage brought around.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
He got to his feet, pulled the cord for the bell system and waited for Newberry. Leaning against the wall, he studied his quarry. She squirmed beneath his intent gaze.
“The carriage is ready,” Newberry informed him from the open doorway barely a minute later.
“Would you like me to accompany you home, bella?”
“I believe it would be best if we said goodbye, my lord.”
“Not goodbye, signorina.” He took her hand in his, turned her palm up and placed a lingering kiss on the smooth, warm surface. “Until next time.”
With that he spun on his heel and left the room by the servants’ door. If he had to watch her walk out of his house, unsatisfied, unhappy about her resistance, he would go after her and beg her to come back.
Groaning and cursing, Justin walked swiftly through the kitchens to the back garden. He leaned against the low wall and heaved in huge breaths of smoky, cold air. He had to stop doing it to himself. Her questions made him think about his present woes, and tonight, he’d wanted to leave them far behind. Thinking about his family and his father always soured his mood.
Tonight he’d wanted to end the torture and bury himself in her warmth. He wanted to wake up with her naked limbs wrapped around him, her bare breasts pressed against his side.
Most of all, he wanted her.
And he would have her.
* * *
Carmalina’s life as she knew it was truly over, despair making even the simplest of actions impossible. She woke early the next morning with a ragged, dry throat, unable to carry a tune to save her life. It signaled the beginning of the end, and saving her life was exactly what she needed right now. There was no way on God’s green earth she was going back to the theatre in just over twenty-four hours to sing for her supper. Her days of performing were done and the reality of it all settled like a boulder in the pit of her empty stomach.
The cold bed was lumpy as she rolled over and spied the little black box resting on the makeshift night table.
Its presence was a stark reminder that she’d had a choice and turned it down. Her brain tried to tell her body there was no harm in being with the man for a few months but she knew better. The harm would be evident after they parted ways and she was snubbed in polite society for the rest of her days in England.
You are already snubbed.
Yes, she was, but not for being a whore. She wondered, no
t for the first time, what the women of the ton would do if their worlds suddenly came to crashing ends and they could no longer rely on their rich husbands and fathers to cater to their every need. Would they lie prone in the street and give up or would they do what Carmalina had done and go out into the world to make their own ways?
She’d been on her own in the world before, after the death of her parents, her great-aunt and then her husband. She could do it again. Only now she was much smarter about it. Joining a travelling performing troupe seemed her only choice and for a year she had travelled the continent, lived, sang her troubles away. Until the Wilding brothers, oozing charm, had wandered along. They had spun tales about life in London, about singing for royalty, the wages she could earn, the benefits of becoming famous. Carmalina had seen stars and gold coins in the two men. It seemed God had sent them to apologize for the turmoil her life had been and offer her a chance. A real, honest, once-in-a-lifetime chance to succeed. They’d promised her fame, fortune and respect. She had readily agreed and said goodbye to her friends. Oh, they’d tried to warn her, to tell her the men were no good but she wouldn’t have it. Always headstrong and stubborn to the point of being stupid, she’d waved and blown kisses in the air and walked away from near poverty, security and friendship ignored.
It was yet another mistake in her life she could neither take back nor undo. How was she to have known the London weather would be so harsh for her voice, for her lungs and health? She certainly couldn’t have known the Wildings’ offer had been but a fairy tale, a lie to gain her agreement. After dropping her off with the Drury Lane manager, she hadn’t seen any trace of the bedazzling pair. But she had found a place at the Theatre Royal. Where the fame and fortune hid, she still hadn’t discovered, but for once she had been happy. Content.
But not for long.
Once again she’d grown comfortable and once again her world shattered around her, one life-threatening sliver at a time. The blissful times in her life were always followed by tragedy that left her devastated but not defeated.
Never defeated.
She curled her knees to her chest beneath the thin blanket and tears filled her eyes, but she angrily brushed them away. It was time to stop relying on her waning faith to see her through the hard times. Time to start using the intelligence she knew she had.
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