“We will do our best to see to your comfort, ma’am,” he said, bowing to her.
“Thank you, Mr. Jacobs,” she said, inclining her head regally before he withdrew discreetly to the nether regions of the house.
“They will hire more servants, of course,” Jocelyn said, taking Jane’s elbow and beginning a tour of the house with her. “Shall I give the orders, or would you prefer to be in charge of it yourself?”
“Neither yet,” she said coolly, looking around the sitting room with its lavender carpet and furnishings, its pink draperies and frilled cushions. “I may not be staying longer than a few days. We have no agreement yet.”
“But we will.” He guided her toward the dining room. “I shall come in the morning for our discussion, Jane. But first I will take you to a modiste I know on Bond Street. She will measure you for the clothes you will need.”
“I will wear my own clothes, thank you,” he was not surprised to hear, “until I am your mistress. If we come to an agreement on that point, then you may summon a dressmaker here if you wish. I am not going to set foot on Bond Street.”
“Because it will be known that you are my mistress?” he asked, watching her run her fingertips over the polished surface of the round dining table—it could be considerably enlarged to seat guests, but when dining alone with his mistress he preferred to be within touching distance. “You think that a matter for shame? I assure you it is not. Courtesans of the highest class, Jane, are almost on a par with ladies. Above them in some ways. They often have considerably more influence. You will be highly respected as my mistress.”
“If I become your mistress, your grace,” she said, “I will be neither ashamed nor proud. I will be taking the purely practical step of securing employment that will be both lucrative and congenial to me.”
He laughed. “Congenial, Jane?” he said. “You bowl me over with your enthusiasm. Shall we go upstairs?”
He wondered if she felt as passionless as she looked. But he remembered the two embraces they had shared and drew his own conclusions, especially from the one in the music room. She had been anything but passionless on that occasion. And even outside her room, after she had sung for his guests, there had been a yearning that he might have kindled had he chosen.
He was still in the doorway of the bedchamber when she, a few steps ahead of him, turned toward him.
“One thing must be made perfectly clear even today,” she said, her hands clasped at her waist, her chin lifted as if for battle, a martial gleam in her eyes. “If I decide to stay, everything in this house has to be changed.”
“Indeed?” He raised his eyebrows and his quizzing glass and took his time looking about the room. The wide, canopied, mahogany bed with its intricately carved posts was covered in brocaded silk, with the same silk pleated in a rosebud design on the canopy. The bed curtains were of heavy, costly velvet, as were the window draperies. The carpet was soft and thick underfoot.
All were a rich scarlet.
“Indeed!” she replied firmly, pure scorn in her voice. “This house is disgusting. It is a caricature of a love nest. I will not sleep in this room even alone. I will certainly not lie here with you. I would feel like a whore.”
Sometimes one had to take a stand with Jane Ingleby. The trouble was he was unaccustomed to taking stands since nobody had ever made it necessary before now.
“Jane,” he said, planting his booted feet apart, clasping his hands at his back, schooling his features into their most forbidding aspect, “I believe it is necessary to remind you that I am not the one being offered employment. I have made you an offer, which you are free to accept or reject. There are plenty who would rush to take your place here given half a chance.”
She stared at him.
“My mistake, your grace,” she said after a few silent moments, during which he had to concentrate hard not to shift uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I thought we had agreed to discuss terms. But I see you have reverted to that ridiculous posturing as autocratic aristocrat, whose will no sane person would even dream of crossing. You had better go and give someone else half a chance. I am leaving.”
She took one purposeful step toward him. Only one. He stood his ground in the doorway. She could try going through him if she wished.
“What is so objectionable about the house?” he was weak enough to ask her. “I have never before had a single complaint about it.”
But she was quite right, damn it. He had felt it as soon as he had stepped inside the house with her. It was is if he had been entering a strange dwelling and seeing it for the first time. This house was just not Jane.
“I can think of two words to describe it,” she said. “I could probably think of a whole dictionary full if I had more time. But those that leap to mind aresleazeandfluff. Neither of which is tolerable to me.”
He pursed his lips. Those two words perfectly described the house. He had had the sitting room designed for a feminine taste, of course, not his own. Or what he had imagined was feminine taste. Effie had always appeared perfectly at home there. So had Lisa and Marie and Bridget. And this room? Well, in candlelight it could always heighten his sexual desire. The predominant reds did marvelous things to the color of naked female flesh.
“It is one of my first conditions,” she said. “This room and the sitting room. They are to be redone to my instructions. This point is not negotiable. Take it or leave it.”
“One of?”He raised his eyebrows. “Tell me, Jane, am I to be allowed to write some conditions of my own into this contract of ours? Or am I to be your slave? I would like to know. Actually the prospect of being a slave has a certain appeal. Does it come with chains and whips?” He grinned at her.
She did not smile.
“A contract is a two-way agreement,” she said. “Of course there will be certain things that you will insist upon. Like unlimited access to my—”
“Favors?” he suggested when she floundered.
“Yes.” She nodded briskly.
