More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (75 page)

Minx. Jade. Witch. Woman.

He raised himself onto his forearms and grinned down at her. “Five minutes?” he said. “Or ten? Which do you think me capable of?”

“I do not wager when I have no hope of winning,” she
said. “But which do I
think
you capable of? Let me see. Both added together, I believe. Fifteen.” She laughed.

He moved in her then, settling much of his weight on her, working her with slow, rhythmic strokes, enjoying the feel of her, the smell of her, the sounds of their coupling, the knowledge that she was enjoying the same things about him and what they did together.

Together
. It was the key. United. As one. Bodies joined in the deeply intimate, infinitely pleasurable dance of sex. And not just bodies. Not just any man with any woman.

“Viola,” he whispered against her ear.

“Yes.”

They kissed openmouthed without breaking the rhythm of their loving. But she knew—of course she knew—what he had said to her with the single word of her name. She said it back to him timeless moments later.

“Ferdinand.”

“Yes.”

They kissed again. And then he buried his face in the silky fragrance of her hair and quickened and deepened his pace until he felt her tighten every muscle and strain closer to him and closer and closer until …

The thing was, he thought some time later, a moment before he realized he was lying on top of her like a dead weight and lifted himself off—the thing was that there was only a before and an after and a knowledge of a placeless, nameless, eventless somewhere and sometime in between that left one peaceful and exhausted and utterly convinced that it was heaven one had spied and forgotten all in the same eternal momentless moment.

It had happened to them together. He had not consciously
heard her, but he knew she had cried out. So had he. He had little experience, but instinct told him that what they had shared was rare and precious. They had glimpsed heaven together.

His friends would cart him off to Bedlam and leave him there if ever he started spouting such embarrassing nonsense in their hearing, he thought. His acquaintances' conversations about women were altogether more earthy and bawdy.

He lowered Viola's nightgown and cradled her against him. He kissed the top of her head.

“Thank you,” he said.

T
HE NIGHT HAD BEEN
sweet agony. They had been hungry after making love and had dressed and gone downstairs for a cold supper Ferdinand had asked for earlier. It was late after they had finished and talked for a while. Viola had expected him to leave. But he had asked her, reaching across the small round table to set one hand over hers, if she wanted him to stay, and she had said yes.

They had slept together. They had also made love twice more, once when they went back to bed, once before they got up in the morning. But it was the actual sleeping together that Viola had found most agonizing. She had slept in fits and starts, and every time she awoke she was aware of him, sometimes turned away from her, more often with his arms about her, the bedcovers all tangled about them. Simply being together like that had seemed more intimate to her than the sex. And more seductive.

Her head was aching now as they sat at breakfast. He
was wearing yesterday's clothes and was not turned out as immaculately as usual. His hair was still looking rather tousled, even though it had been combed. He was unshaven. He was looking altogether adorable.

“I have a number of things to do today,” he was saying, “not least of which is to go home and change my clothes.” He grinned and rubbed a hand over his jaw. “And get rid of this beard. Perhaps I'll be able to call in here this afternoon, though. We need to discuss your salary, and then we will be able to forget about it and not mention it again. I do find that part of our arrangement a little distasteful, don't you?”

“But quite essential.” She smiled at him and memorized him with her eyes—the restless, rather boyishly eager manner that was so typical of him, the ready grin, which she had at first thought was rakish, the confident air, tinged with an unconscious arrogance that came from his birth and upbringing, the hint of reckless danger that always saved him from being a soft touch.

“I daresay Jane—the duchess, that is—will invite me for dinner tonight,” he said. “I have promised to call sometime today to see the children—they were sleeping last evening. Or if it is not Jane it will be Angie—Lady Heyward, my sister. She will ferret me out fast enough once she knows I am back in town.”

Viola held on to her smile. He had family, of whose members he was fonder than he realized. His voice told her that he was looking forward to seeing them again. The gulf between her and him was enormous, insurmountable. As his mistress she would be on the very periphery of his life, performing a base, if essential, service. And even that would be just for a few weeks or months, until he tired of her. His family was his forever.

Such thoughts confirmed her in her resolve.

“I won't stay late, though.” He reached across the table, as he had the evening before, and took her hand in a warm clasp. “I won't let them persuade me to go off with them to whatever balls or soirees or concerts are scheduled for tonight. I'll come back here after dinner.” He squeezed her hand. “I can hardly wait.”

“Me neither.” She smiled at him.

“Really, Viola?” His dark eyes were gazing into hers. “It really and truly is not just a job to you? You really—”

“Ferdinand.” She raised their clasped hands and brought his against her cheek. His uncertainty and vulnerability, in such contrast to the image he presented to the world, broke her heart. “You cannot believe that. Not after last night. Please don't believe that. Not ever.”

“No.” He chuckled. “I won't. I just don't like this setup, though, Viola, and I don't mind telling you so. You ought to be back in the country—Miss Thornhill of Pinewood Manor. Or my wife—Lady Ferdinand Dudley. You really ought. I don't care that you have no father or that you did what you did because you had to eat. And I don't care what people might say. I'm the sort of fellow everyone expects to get into scrapes anyway.”

“Marrying me would hardly be a scrape, Ferdinand,” she said past the great lump in her throat.

“Let's do it,” he said eagerly. “Let's just
do
it. I'll purchase a special license and—”

“No!” She turned her head to kiss the back of his hand before releasing it and standing up.

“It is what Tresham and Jane did,” he said quickly, getting to his feet too. “They just went off one morning and got married while Angie and I were devising schemes for getting him to offer for her. He announced their marriage
in the middle of a ball that night. I don't think they have ever regretted it. I think they are happy.”

To be Ferdinand's wife. To be able to go back to Pinewood with him …

“It would not work for us, dear,” she said gently, and then was jolted by the realization that she had spoken the endearment out loud. “You must be on your way. You have things to do.”

“Yes.” He took both her hands in his and raised them one at a time to his lips. “I wish I had met you six or seven years ago, Viola. Before … well,
before
. What were you doing then?”

“Probably serving coffee at my uncle's inn,” she said. “And you were in the dusty depths of a library somewhere at Oxford studying Latin declensions. Go now.”

“Later, then.” He was still holding her hands. He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. “I could become addicted to you. Be warned.” He grinned at her as he turned and strode from the room.

It was appropriate, she thought, that her final sight of him was almost identical to her first—or nearly the first. He had been smiling just like that when her eyes had met his across the village green at the conclusion of the sack race.

A handsome, dashing stranger then.

The love of her heart now.

She stood where she was beside the dining room table until she heard the front door open and then shut behind him. She closed her eyes tightly and clutched the back of her chair.

Then she took a deep breath and went in search of Hannah.

T WAS MIDMORNING BY THE TIME FERDINAND
set off for the offices of Selby and Braithwaite. Fortunately, Selby was free to see him no more than five minutes after he arrived.

“Ah, my lord.” The solicitor met him at the door of his office and shook his hand warmly. “Come up to London for the rest of the Season, have you? I hope you found Pinewood to your taste. I heard from his grace about the spot of bother you had when you arrived there, but that has all been cleared up, I trust. Have a chair and tell me what I may do for you.”

Matthew Selby, middle-aged, genial, woolly-haired, looked like everyone's image of an upright, respectable father figure. He was also one of London's toughest solicitors.

“What you may do, Selby,” Ferdinand said, “is transfer ownership of Pinewood Manor to Miss Viola Thornhill. I want it done legally and in writing so there can never be any argument about it.”

“She is the lady you found living there,” the solicitor said, frowning. “His grace mentioned her by name. She has no legal claim on the estate, my lord. Even though his grace insisted upon calling at Westinghouse and Sons in person, I did conduct my own investigation too, since you are a valued client of mine.”

“If she had a legal claim I would not need to come,
would I?” Ferdinand said. “Draw up any papers that are necessary and I will sign them. I want it done today.”

Selby removed the spectacles that were usually perched halfway down his nose and regarded Ferdinand with paternal concern, as if he were a boy who could not possibly make a rational decision on his own.

“Might I respectfully suggest, my lord,” he said, “that you discuss the matter with the Duke of Tresham before doing anything hasty?”

Ferdinand fixed him with a stare. “Does Tresham have any claim on Pinewood?” he asked. “Is he my guardian?”

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” Selby said. “I merely thought he might help you reach a wise decision.”

“You are agreed,” Ferdinand continued, “that Pinewood is mine? You have just said so. You investigated the matter and discovered that there can be no possible doubt.”

“None whatsoever, my lord. But—”

“Then Pinewood is mine to give away,” Ferdinand told him. “I am giving it away. To Miss Viola Thornhill. I want you to do the paperwork for me, Selby, so that I will know everything is done properly. I don't want anyone else to ride up to Pinewood in two years' time, claiming to have won the damned property in a card game and kicking her out. Now, can you do it for me, or shall I go elsewhere?”

Selby looked across the desk at him with gentle reproach as he put his spectacles back on his nose.

“I can do it, my lord,” he said.

“Good.” Ferdinand sat back and crossed his booted legs at the ankles. “Do it, then. I'll wait.”

He thought about Pinewood and Trellick while he waited—about choir practice proceeding without him
this week, about Jamie going without his Latin lessons, about the ladies straining their eyes sewing in the poorly lit church hall instead of in the drawing room at Pinewood, about the building of the laborers' cottages being delayed. About a certain spot on the riverbank where the river rushed past and daisies and buttercups grew in the grass, about a hillside down which a woman had run out of control, laughing and shrieking. About a village lass with daisies in her hair.

Well, he decided later as he strode away from the offices, there was no point in thinking about it all any longer. It had nothing to do with him. This time she would have to accept the gift. She would have no choice. He would take her the deed this afternoon. Of course—his footsteps lagged and some of the spring went out of his step—it would mean that she would no longer need to be his mistress. But that had been very much a last-resort offer on his part anyway.

He did not really want Viola Thornhill as his mistress. He wanted her … well, he simply wanted her. But he would damned well have to learn to do without her, wouldn't he? That was all there was to it. Of course …

“Wool-gathering, Ferdinand?”

He looked up to see his brother on horseback, riding along the street in the opposite direction from the one he was taking.

“Tresham,” he said.

“And looking decidedly glum,” the duke said. “She would not agree to terms, I suppose? Women of her sort are not worth brooding over, take my word for it. Do you want to come to Jackson's boxing saloon and try your luck sparring with me? Throwing a few punches can be a marvelous cure for bruised pride.”

“Where is Jane?” Ferdinand asked.

His brother raised his eyebrows. “Angeline took her shopping,” he said. “This will mean one new bonnet at the very least, I daresay. For our sister, that is. One wonders why Heyward is still complaisant enough to pay the bills. She must have a bonnet for every day of the year, with a few to spare.”