"Perhaps the word you're looking for is 'inexperienced'," Miss Martin said, puffing up like a peacock. "I do hope it wasn't boring to a man of your caliber."
"Certainly not boring. It was more than I'd ever hoped for," he replied, though he couldn't stop chewing over her words. "Inexperienced?"
She looked away. "Forget I said it."
"No. I want to know what you meant by it." A sudden thought struck him, a thought that made his stomach twist a little. "The Prime's not your lover, is he?"
"Well, I thought it might take you a little longer to discern the truth. There goes your revenge, my lord. No, I'm not his mistress. I never have been, and I never will be. That place is already taken. Why do you think I was so certain Mrs. Ross had not stolen the relic? Let us just say that her whereabouts that night were quite well-known and her alibi is foolproof."
"But you love him?"
"Of course I love him. He is terribly dear to me." She seemed to enjoy his discomfiture.
Lucien's eyes narrowed. Miss Martin actually laughed, a soft, husky sound that he liked very much.
"Come here," he said.
"But it's not nighttime, my lord." Miss Martin blinked her eyelashes at him flirtatiously. "I don't have to do anything that you say. Quite the opposite."
Reaching forward, he hauled her into his arms. Miss Martin gave a startled squeal that died as he settled her in his lap. Her skirts fell around his thighs, and the snug curve of her bottom settled against his groin. Miss Martin sucked in a sharp breath.
"Why do you hold him so dearly?" he asked, toying with the buttons on her dress. It was buttoned all the way to her throat, where a fringe of lace brushed against her neck. Red suited her. It was a color made for dangerous women, though her admission of inexperience threw him a little.
"Why does the precise nature of my relationship with Drake concern you so much?" As he drove forward to press his lips against the soft skin beneath her jaw, her fingers pressed against his mouth, stilling him.
Lucien looked up, then sucked one of them into his mouth, circling it with his tongue. Miss Martin's pupils were so very large, her lips parting breathily. She might be unused to such displays, but she didn't dislike them. White teeth sank into her lower lip. He wanted, very badly, to replace it with his own mouth.
And couldn't.
"It doesn't," he lied. Again those fingers denied him.
"Answer my question, and I'll answer yours."
That irritated him, for as much as he didn't particularly want to explore his own motivations in pursuing the answer, he did indeed want to know the truth.
Lucien nipped at her fingers. "Because I want you. Because I wanted to steal you away from him. Because I wanted to fuck him out of your mind. That's why I wanted to know what he is to you, especially now that you speak of him having another mistress."
"He was never in my mind."
"In your heart then." He started to undo the buttons at her throat.
"My lord," she protested in a whisper.
"It's not night. You have no obligation to let me please you, unless you wish to. And you owe me an answer."
Thick lashes dragged over her violet eyes. Miss Martin looked both helpless and fascinated. Her hand splayed flat over his heart, holding him at bay. "Drake was the father I never had," she blurted. "You don't have to do this. He's not your competition."
That satisfied something inside of him that Lucien hadn't even known was bothered. It also raised numerous questions about her. "Your own father chairs the Vigilance Against Sorcery Committee." Grant Martin was a thorn in all of their sides, and a bastard to boot. "Does that have anything to do with you?"
"Of course it does. My father thinks that I am filth. He threw me out onto the streets when I was seventeen. I had no one. Nothing. Only the clothes I wore and a future where I could earn my living on my back or as some rich man's mistress." Her laugh sounded brutal. "You will never understand what Drake did for me. He'd felt my sorcery—the way I expressed it—and he came looking for me. He offered me a life as my own woman and took me under his wing as his apprentice when nobody had ever given a damn about me, and when such a position was highly coveted. Of course everyone in the Order thought I was his lover. What other use could a man have for a young woman? Why else would he help her? I love him for that. I love him for showing me that men can be trusted. That someone wanted to be my father, without trying to ever take anything from me. You don't know what it is like to grow up knowing nothing but shame—"
A queer feeling twisted in his stomach, an echoing ache. Yes, actually, I do...
"—and then realizing that you do have worth. That everything that you had despised about your own nature was something to be celebrated and accepted. It was encouraged. Does that explain it all?" Tears pricked at her eyes, but they were fiercely determined and very, very protective. "I would do anything for Drake. Anything at all."
The cut of it went deep, that the Prime could be a father figure to her, when he had never given a damn about a son of his own blood. It was an ugly feeling, for Lucien hadn't known he'd even craved such a thing.
"Yes, it explains it." It also explained her anger at the way he'd assumed such a thing too. Taking Miss Martin's hand from his chest, he set it on his lapel, then took her chin in his hand, his thumb resting against those pretty lips. "Why did you agree to this?"
