Vincent hopped down from the desk and strode slowly toward Cassandra, tilting his head curiously to the side. “But what if you were not my wife or my fiancée, but merely my mistress? Would I be able to trust you to be faithful to me then?”
She was growing uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking. “A mistress is generally considered to be a temporary alliance. There is no binding vow of fidelity.”
“But what if,” he said, strolling even closer, “your lover was not free to marry you. Do you not believe you could have true fidelity of the heart, without the marriage contract? It is only a piece of paper, after all, usually entered into for the sake of duty.”
“You of all people are suggesting it is possible to have lifelong fidelity of the heart? That sounds a lot like love to me, Vincent, and may I remind you that you are the one who is suspicious and mistrusting of love. Not me. And you are the one who wanted a legal binding contract between us.”
He stopped before her, only inches away. “Keep in mind that when I suggested a legal contract, we were not entering into an affair of the heart. You even went so far as to say you hated me, hence I required the contract.”
“I do not hate you,” she told him in a calmer, gentler voice.
“I am glad to hear it. I don’t hate you either.”
She tried to moisten her lips, but her mouth had gone dry. “Just for the sake of argument,” she said, “if it had been an affair of the heart, and I had told you that I loved you, would you still have wanted the contract? Would you have trusted me to be faithful and steadfast?”
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, even when you are trying very hard to convince yourself that you do not. This business of never taking a lover...” He shook his head at the notion. “You would be miserable.”
Cassandra felt a swirling jumble of both anger and excitement deep inside. One minute she was beginning to believe what Charlotte had said—that Vincent 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 disreputable rogue. “You promised, Vincent.”
“Yes, I did, but on the day that 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 that 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 bring myself to open a letter you sent to me afterward. I was afraid of what might happen if I did.”
He ran the back of a finger along her cheek and her chest heaved 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.
Cassandra hated that she was so weak when it came to her desires. She simply could not conquer them.
“If we became lovers,” she said, trying to focus on the more practical and dangerous implications of such an arrangement, “I would be carrying another child of yours within the space of a week.”
“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 of pleasure with a woman I genuinely respect.”
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 stepped a little closer, cupped her face in his hands, looked at her for a few heart-stopping seconds, then touched his lips to hers. It was tentative at first, as if he were testing her willingness to allow it. When she did not resist, the kiss grew passionate and made her go weak at the knees.
Cassandra let out a tiny whimper of surprise. Heaven help her, the familiarity of his kiss set her on fire, and she reveled in the delicious sensation of his tongue mingling hotly with hers. His mouth was 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 there and pull this man down to the floor—to feel the weight of his body 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 her neck. He was aggressive and strong, his body thrusting. Her pulse pounded with desire, even when she knew it was wrong. It was so very wrong, and it was not what she wanted.
“No, Vincent,” she said breathlessly, struggling to bring her desires under control. “We must 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 pleaded. “Just one more kiss.”
Though her body was exploding with white-hot, sizzling excitement, she forced herself to push him back. “No. We had an agreement.”
His eyes burned with desire as he watched her move across the room, as far away from him as possible.
“You of all people should know I cannot be trusted to behave like a gentleman,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he was jesting or being serious.
“Yes, I know,” she replied, nevertheless. “I am even more clear on that point now.”
Taking a step closer, he studied her carefully. “Don’t you remember how incredible it was that night?”
She fought to get her breathing under control. “If incredible nights are what you want, you must learn to enjoy them with your wife, because as I said before, I will not become your mistress.”
“Why not? What stops you? You’ve already given up your position in society and you 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.”
“You believe that will make 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 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? Heaven help her, it was as if this man had been dropped into her life intentionally, for the sole purpose of testing her resolve to be sensible and virtuous.
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, suddenly aware of her surroundings—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 singing 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 watched 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 profound purpose, to give me a chance to behave honorably for once. As honorably as a man can behave with a former lover who has borne him an illegitimate child.”
Cassandra 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 give me a second chance? Can you forgive me?”
She looked up hesitantly. “I don’t know, Vincent. You say and do the most wicked things sometimes.”
For a moment he was quiet, and when he finally 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,” she replied.
“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 glistening perspiration on his forehead and squinted in the sunshine that reflected off the lake. “All I know is that there was an extraordinary spark between us from the beginning. Tell me you have not forgotten.”
“I have not,” 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 and a coward.”
“Yes, you were.”
He sighed. “I must ask you again, Cassandra, can you forgive me? You are the mother of my child and I cannot bear for you to think me hopeless. I do not want to be hopeless.”
The breeze blew gently at the ribbons on Cassandra’s hat. She could not believe that Vincent had just spoken these words to her. She had 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 would receive five thousand pounds from his father simply for saying “I do.” Over the next two weeks, Vincent 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 the infant into his outstretched arms.
Over those busy few weeks, Vincent 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.
And 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 calls, 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 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 June 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.”
The Mistress Diaries (Love at Pembroke Palace Book 2) Page 14