He chuckled. “Our first quarrel, Jane,” he said. “But not our last, I suspect. I must warn you, though, that I would not have your emotions engaged in this liaison. I would not have you hurt at its inevitable ending. What happens in this room is sex. Nothing else. And you were not gauche. It was as good a session of sexual intercourse as I have ever experienced. Better, in fact. There, are you reassured?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice still cool. “Thank you.”
He was aroused again—by his anger, by her cool refusal to be chastised, by her golden beauty, by the faint smell of roses. He did what he had to do to reassert his control over the afternoon’s business. He turned her onto her back and mated with her again, but this time he concentrated all his powers on keeping the act carnal, even clinical. Man and mistress. Nothing more.
And then he slept, lulled by the sound of rain against the window.
“ITHOUGHT PERHAPSyou would wish to stay for dinner,” she said.
“No.”
They were dressed again and back downstairs in the sitting room. But he had not seated himself as she had. He had gone first to stand in front of the fireplace to stare down into the unlit coals. Then he had paced to the window to stare out at the rain.
He filled the sitting room with his presence and energy. Looking at his immaculate elegance, his proud, erect posture, his powerful shoulders and thighs, Jane found it hard to believe that just half an hour ago he had been lying naked with her in the bed upstairs. It was already hard to believe any of it had happened despite the physical evidence of soreness and tender breasts and unsteady legs.
“I have a dinner engagement,” he said. “And there is an infernal ball to be attended tonight. No, I did not come to stay, Jane. Merely to consummate our liaison.”
It was not going to be easy, being his mistress. She had never expected it to be. He was an arrogant man of uncertain temper. He was accustomed to having his own way, especially with women. But it was going to be especially hard to cope with his strange, sudden mood swings.
She would have felt hurt by his words, belittled by them, as she had when he had spoken in a similar manner in bed earlier. But she realized that the words were not spoken carelessly but quite deliberately. She was not sure why. To remind her that she was his mistress, not his lover?
Or to convince himself that she meant nothing to him beyond a female body to be used for his pleasure?
Despite all her ignorance and inexperience, she would swear that the first time he had entered her he had not been using her. She had not been a mere woman’s body. It had not been just carnal pleasure.
He had made love to her.Withher.
He was ashamed now of having shown such weakness.
“That is a relief, then,” she said coolly. “There are several rearrangements to some of the other rooms that I hoped to start today, but I have already lost most of the afternoon.”
He looked over his shoulder at her without turning and regarded her steadily.
“You will not be put in your place, Jane, will you?”
“If you mean,” she replied, “that I will not allow you to make me feel like a whore, your grace, the answer is no, I will not. I will be here whenever you need me. It is our agreement. But my life will not revolve around your visits. I will not spend my days gazing wistfully from the window and my evenings listening expectantly for the door knocker.”
She remembered guiltily how she had paced back and forth to the windows all morning. She would not do it again.
“Perhaps, Jane,” he said softly, his eyes narrowing dangerously, “I should send a message in advance whenever I wish to bed you to ask if you can fit me into your busy schedule.”
“You were not listening,” she told him. “I signed a contract, and I mean to keep it and to see that you do too.”
“Whatdoyou do with your time?” He turned from the window and looked about the empty room. “Do you go out?”
“Into the garden at the back,” she said. “It is rather pretty, though it needs work. I have ideas and have started to implement them.”
“Do you read?” He frowned. “Are there any books here?”
“No.” He should know very well there were not.
“I will take you to Hookham’s Library tomorrow morning,” he said abruptly, “and buy you a subscription.”
“No!” she said sharply. She relaxed again. “No, thank you, Jocelyn. I have plenty to do. It takes a great deal of time and energy to convert a brothel into a home, you know.”
“That was unprovoked impudence, Jane, and unworthy of you.” He looked very large and menacing, standing before her chair, his booted feet apart, his frown still in place. “I suppose if I told you I would come to take you walking in Hyde Park, you would be too busy for that too?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “You do not need to put yourself out on my account.”
