He sighed. “Ineed at least a year to prepare for the antics to ensue.”
She chuckled. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy the experience.”
“I think she’d appreciate the city more if there was someone she could talk to about dresses, and fashion, and... womanly things.” He gritted his teeth. This shouldn’t have been so hard to ask. He was a grown man for goodness’s sake. “I was hoping you might accompany me?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Who knows? If I bring home a companion of a sort, maybe Charlotte won’t run off every chaperone within fifty miles.”
Her gaze widened. “To the country? Tomorrow?” Her eyes brightened. “I would love to meet your sister!” Expression falling, that horrible frown surfaced, the one that spoke of troubled thoughts. “I’m hardly appropriate as a companion. I never received the proper education and my pedigree would bring embarrassment to your family should my parentage come to light. Besides, I am needed here. My mother, the club. I have obligations.”
He didn’t give a fig about her connections, familial or otherwise, but she didn’t seem likely to respond favorably to him snubbing society. “We can take your mother with,” he said instead. The sooner he got her away from that club, the better. It was a matter of time before one of the patrons saw her and made assumptions, like Hawkins. Anger boiled to the surface thinking of those three men. He’d have to do something about them soon. “Fresh air is said to cure most illnesses,” he pushed. “Or at least ease the suffering.”
“It’s not that kind of—” She cut herself off and started again. “Thank you, but I must remain. When will you return?”
The prospect of not seeing her every day was enough to make him want to write back to his housekeeper that Charlotte may decorate the very walls with spiders if it meant he could stay in London. But that wouldn’t do. He owed his sister a visit. He owed her far more.
He raised Camille’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “I won’t be gone long if I can help it.”
Not when you are here.
He knew she’d heard the words he’d left unspoken when that brilliant smile of hers chased her frown away.
“Come now, Your Grace. A few nights’ reminder of the peace of the country and you’ll be pained to part from it.”
“I much prefer the diversions of a particular young woman.” Her teasing didn’t help his plummeting spirits. Going more than a day without a fresh insult from those luscious lips may prove harder to bear than sobriety. “I will write, if that is acceptable?”
She nodded, but her voice held a hesitant note. “When you’re there, you should consider what you truly want, Renard.”
“What do you mean?”
“I will not be your mistress.”
He blinked at her sudden fierce expression. “The thought never crossed my mind.” And it hadn’t. Mistress, what a waste to keep a woman like her a secret. Was that what she thought his actions implied? Damn it all!
He frowned. Whatdidhis actions admit? He cared for her, would protect her if given the chance. Setting her up as a companion to his sister would be a faux pas society wouldn’t take quietly. Anything more than that... If society railed against an improper companion, they’d never approve of making such a woman a duchess.
Society could eat bricks. His parents and grandparents were gone. Aside from that insidious Mrs. Norris and her increasingly nosy letters pertaining to her would-be son heir, who’d do their utmost to interfere, he was a duke! The damn title should come with some perks.
Not that he was considering marriage. He was courting, that was all. And there were no laws against that.
“Milly.” He took her face in his hands and pressed a long kiss to her forehead. “Aside from some rather erotic positions I’m keen to interest you in, not many thoughts have crowded my brain. I’ve thought only of you and the pleasure you bring me. Talking, arguing, sex... It’s more than physical.” He shrugged. “I know you would never agree to being a kept woman and I respect your choice.”
“Then what is this?”
“This?” He hated that generic word to describe what was between them. His thumb ran across her mouth while he imagined something else pressing between her lips. “This,” he said, “is an ambiguity in fate’s design that I have no interest in questioning. I want you desperately, you want me marginally. Allow me the title of friend, lover, confidante. I will take all I can get, but don’t throw away what could be.” He kissed her once, twice, in quick succession. “I will do as you ask and think over our relationship, if you will promise the same? But know this, Camille Forthright.” He kissed her a third time for good measure, knowing with certainty his next words were spoken by fate herself.
“Until you look me in the eyes and tell me, resolutely, to leave, you will never be rid of me.”
*
He left herat her door, stunned and wanting. His words burned through her, leaving even the drafty stairwell feeling steamy. She made it back to the second story and locked the door behind her before falling into the stained cot in the corner.
He was mad. To invite a commoner to meet his sister, one who worked in a pleasure house for that matter, was improper. Neither of them would be spared the shame or mockery of the gossip papers. The ‘rogue’ duke fallen, and she... She would never put herself in a position to be used as gossip fodder for theton. Never again.
How her heart had pounded at his invitation. To ride to the country, to meet his family. For a moment, she’d forgotten their stations and her responsibilities and let herself dream.
She’d wear her best dress and her only surviving ribbon from her childhood. She’d walk up to a beautiful fair-haired lady, easily identified as the duke’s sister, and introduce herself as Miss Forthright with a perfect curtsey.
“A good girl curtsies low to her betters.”
Lady Charlotte would have invited her to sit in the garden—a perfectly trimmed and primed space befitting the grounds of a duke—and they’d take tea and biscuits while talking of easy topics.
