His heart sank.
“Taking a lover, the rules…” She took another sip. “It was foolish, and so wrong.”
“No, it was not.” Especially when that lover was to have been him. “You decided on something that you wanted for yourself.”
“Which is the very reason that it is wrong…selfish.”
He did not understand, yet once again he was afraid to ask.
“When I first decided to take a lover, I wanted him for the Season. I realized it may be too much and settled for a month, which you negotiated to three weeks.” She sighed and wandered to a chair and sank into it. “I had rules to keep my lover available only for me, such as a mistress, except my lover would be that mistress.”
Angelo hated that he had guessed correctly.
“It would be empty. Why would I want a lover that I had to convince to remain with me for a set amount of time? I want a lover who wishes to be here, not because he is fulfilling an obligation brought about by an agreement.”
“I would not be here if I did not desire you,” Angelo informed her.
“Maybe tonight, but there is no guarantee that you would wish to visit tomorrow, next week or in a fortnight. Yet, you would because you are a gentleman and would not renege upon a pact made, even if you regretted the decision.”
“I would make no bargain if I did not think I could fulfill the requirements,” Angelo argued.
His word choice unsettled her further. “Neither one of us knows that for certain,” Octavia insisted. “We may not even be compatible, and you would be stuck because you would fulfill the requirements.”
Angelo practically chuckled. “I can assure you that we will be and are compatible.” He knew that before he even kissed her and that had been proven to be the truth when she had been pressed against him on the dark walk. They were fashioned for the other.
“I do not share your confidence. I was not enough for my husband.”
Had she set aside the idea of a lover and wanted more in a relationship? Or was she going to avoid intimacy for the rest of her life because of the arse she had married? If that was her intention, Angelo was prepared to change her mind, no matter what it took.
“I wanted to feel special for just a short time, but there was nothing special when I asked for such attention. If my lover cannot be here because of his choice without rules in place, then I do not want him here.”
Some of the tension he had been holding released in that she still wanted a lover, and he did understand. His mistresses were with him because of mutual attraction, or so he assumed, but he had also provided a home, servants and jewelry. How many feigned pleasure and passion because otherwise they’d be destitute?
Angelo had not given much thought to the practice, but now, seeing it the way Octavia did, he understood her desire to do away with her original plan. It did cheapen what could occur between a man and a woman and in all likelihood, only one was truly free to enjoy and find pleasure while the other may be forced to pretend.
Bloody hell! When he had snuck in the back of her house this evening, he expected to seduce and enjoy, nor did he consider himself as being in the assigned role of mistress, yet he understood Octavia’s perspective.
After they shared one night of mutual passion, she would question each intimacy that followed because a time limit had been set for their affair, and one where he was allowed no other lovers but her. Further, Angelo didn’t think she believed that he could be happy and content only to be with her for any length of time.
“Out of curiosity, what was the tenth rule.” For some reason, he needed to know.
Her smile was sad, and she looked down.
“No emotional attachment,” she answered. “No falling in love, infatuation, or any of that. However, besides being lovers, I had hoped for a friend, a confidant. Someone who I could trust to be myself with.” She took a sip. “I had little freedom of expression in my home, and that has continued until now, and perhaps that is because it became a habit.”
“Why?” He was rather intrigued by rule number ten, especially since it would offer the opportunity to come to know Octavia better.
“As with you, I am the eldest, but with more younger siblings, especially sisters and I was expected to be an example of proper and acceptable behavior.”
“My sister and I were separated much of our life. My sister, Gaia, lived in Italy with my mother and my father raised me in Kent. Once a year we would travel to them and stay for a month, and they always traveled to us for Christmastime. I never had the opportunity to be raised with my sister or fully come to know her until she moved here permanently and by then she was an adult.”
“I am sorry for that. My younger siblings may have frustrated me, but I also do not know what I would have done without them. Especially after my parents died, and then when I had to return home a widow.”
Angelo found himself feeling the loss of what he had never experienced—being raised with siblings.
She sighed and then took a sip of her brandy. “Then one must be so careful in Society. The slightest misstep and a woman could be ruined. It is worse for a miss yet to wed. That was why discretion was so important. Not only for myself, but for my younger sisters. Proof of Society watching appeared the day after we first spoke.”
“It does grow tiring, being watched.”
