“Hera,” he repeated as if dumfounded. He gave his head a little shake. “Did you just saycontract?”
“I—I have been given to understand that contracts offer protection in...affairs of the heart. Karl didn’t...I mean, well, I?—”
“Marriage,” he insisted. “I offered?—”
“Iknow,” she interrupted him again before he could further embarrass them both. “And I also know I am not the kind of woman you’d ever wish to marry...”
Even if she were, Annis rendered the unlikely unattainable. He could not possibly agree to raise another man’s bastard. And she would never again give up her child.
Not even to be a duchess.
Not evenhisduchess.
“...But neither can I enter another arrangement without protection. I will not repeat my mistake.”
He rose to his feet. Then he stalked back to the balcony where, but for the snowy white lawn of his shirt, he blended in with the gloom.
She was thankful for the distance. Without him close, she could think.
She wanted him. What was more—she bit her lip—a contractcould leave her with something solid and reliable. And if there was even a chance Karl could be in England and had hired the Runner who tracked her to Wisterley, she could no longer depend on taking a rented room in the village near that estate.
She would never again have a better opportunity to secure a future for Annis and they needed a place to live.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Just so I understand, you are agreeing to be my mistress, but not my wife?”
Ah, but what must he think of her? “For now,” she said carefully.
“For now,” he repeated. Again, he turned away. His shirt stretched across his muscled shoulders as he folded his arms. “Eyes on the horizon.”
“Pardon?” She prompted,
“Never mind.” He rolled his shoulders. Then, he sighed. “Very well. You may, of course, name any terms you desire.”
Oh, how she wished she could see his face.Or perhaps not. She named her chief concern. “Wecannotbe discovered...at least until we know one another well enough to truly consider marriage.”
“The simplest issue to answer.” He continued to speak into the darkness. “Your chamber is an enclosed anteroom. The paneling that runs along the wall as well as the stairway beyond the room inside conceals the former armory—windowless, quite out of the way and never attended.”
Tingles of awareness ran up her arms. “You’ve planned well, I see.”
He turned. “As I told you before, the scheme to hire Mrs. Small was wholly devised by Mrs. Whitby. I was merely responding to your concern.”
She closed her eyes. “I cannotbelievewe are discussing this.”
“Can’t you? An age-old story.Trite, really...the wealthy duke and the?—”
“Oh, do stop before you say something I willnotbe able to forgive! Youjustpromised not to hurt me.”
The tension in his body slacked. “Hera...”
“Can’t you see that I must protect myself?”And Annis.
“I can,” he conceded warily.
“I have a reason,” her voice cracked, “a very good reason, I cannot fall victim to empty promises yet again. Before this evening, I just...well, I had not considered the possibility of accepting a lover on...terms.”
“Terms.” His mouth twisted ruefully. “Shall we negotiate, then?”
Her heartbeat galloped. She was really going to do this. “I should, once we part, like a place to live. Something small and out of the way, suitable for a widow.”
