No Man's Mistress (28 page)

“I will show Miss Thornhill around,” Lord Ferdinand informed the butler. “Have her bags taken up and her maid shown to her rooms, will you?”

“Have you been here before, then?” Viola asked him as he ushered her into a room to their left.

“No,” he admitted. “But it is not a large house. I do not expect I will get lost.”

The sitting room in which they found themselves was tastefully furnished and decorated in delicate shades of gray and lavender. It was a very feminine room, even if it lacked some warmth. It was a good place, she decided, looking about with a practiced eye, for a mistress to entertain her employer before they adjourned to the bedchamber.

The room next door was less pretty, but far cozier. There were some comfortable armchairs arranged about the fireplace as well as a small but elegant desk and chair. There was a pianoforte and a bookcase filled with books. There was an empty embroidery frame before one of the chairs and an artist's easel propped against one wall.

The Duke of Tresham's mistresses, Viola thought, or one of them, at least, had been people in their own right. How strange, that she of all people should feel some surprise at that fact. This room had an air of having been lived in, perhaps even happily. Maybe, after all, being a mistress was preferable to the sort of life she had led for four years. Perhaps there was a chance of some relationship. But whoever the poor woman was who had been happy here with the duke, she was gone now. He had married the duchess.

“I like this room,” she said. “Someone made a home here.”

Lord Ferdinand was looking about too, his eyes pausing on each object, a slight frown between his brows. But he did not comment aloud. He ushered her into the dining room and then upstairs.

The bedchamber took her quite by surprise. Although it was opulently decorated in satins and velvets and had a thick carpet underfoot, it did not look like a typical love nest. Men invariably liked scarlet as an accompaniment to their sensual delights. Lilian Talbot's
bedchamber had been predominantly scarlet. This one was decorated in varying shades of moss green, cream, and gold.

One would feel less like a mistress in this room and more like a lover, she thought. She was glad it was here she would spend her last hours with Lord Ferdinand. She would not be his mistress, because she was not going to be paid, but she was glad their surroundings would help her see him as a lover rather than as a client.

The door that must lead into the dressing room, slightly ajar when they entered the bedchamber, was pulled firmly closed from the other side.

Viola turned to look at Lord Ferdinand. He was hovering in the doorway, his hands at his back, his long legs slightly apart. He looked handsome and powerful and slightly dangerous—and very obviously uncomfortable. This, of course, she realized, was all new to him.

“Will it do until I can find something else?” he asked.

“Yes, it will do.”

His eyes shifted away from hers. “You must be very tired,” he said.

“Yes, rather.”

“I will leave you, then,” he said. “I will return tomorrow to see that you have settled comfortably. I daresay the rest of your belongings will arrive within the next few days. I sent a message back to Pinewood yesterday.”

He was going to leave her out of deference to her weariness after two days of travel. She had not expected this. How easy it would be. She could see the last of him forever now, within the next few minutes, before she had time to think. But she could not bear to be alone tonight. It was too soon. She had not had a chance to steel her mind to it. Tomorrow she would be ready, but tonight …

She crossed the room and set her fingertips against his chest. He did not move as she smiled into his face and arched her body inward until she touched him from her hips to her knees.

“I
am
tired,” she said, “and ready for bed. Are you?”

He flushed. “Don't do that,” he said, frowning. “Don't
do
it, do you hear me? If I wanted a damned whore, I would go to a brothel. I don't want Lilian Talbot. I want
you
. I want Viola Thornhill.”

She had donned her other persona without conscious thought, she realized, desperate to shield herself from pain. It was strange, she thought, and just a little frightening, to realize that Lilian Talbot repelled him, that it was Viola Thornhill who drew him to intimacy. It was Viola he wanted as his mistress. She drew away from him and let her arms fall to her sides. Without her customary mask, all her emotions felt naked.

“Let us at least be honest with each other,” he said. “Must there be artifice and tricks and games just because we are embarking on a sexual relationship? You
know
, do you not? I suppose it was embarrassingly obvious that you were my first woman. Let me be Viola Thornhill's first man, then. Let us look for some comfort from this relationship as well as pleasure. Perhaps even some companionship? Will it be possible, do you suppose?”

But she could only shake her head, while unshed tears balled themselves into a lump in her throat and welled into her eyes.

“I do not know,” she whispered.

“I am not interested in Lilian Talbot,” he said. “She would make me feel gauche and inadequate, you see. And rather dirty. I want you or no one at all. Take it or leave it.”

It was time for the truth. Time to tell him that she
had tricked him earlier in the carriage, getting him to agree that she was free to end the liaison at a moment's notice. Time to tell him that she intended to use that freedom tomorrow morning.

She stepped against him again and pressed her face into his neckcloth.

“Ah, Ferdinand,” she said.

H
e was in deep waters. His instinct was to wade out so that he could stand upon the shore H and view the situation from a safe distance. If he went back to his own rooms, he would be able to digest what was happening to him. It was not even late. He could change his clothes and go to White's, find some of his friends, discover what entertainments the evening offered, and pick one or two to attend. Life would be familiar and comfortable again.

Was this how all men felt about their mistresses at first? As if their very souls yearned for union, for comfort, for peace? For love? Did all men suffer from the illusion that the woman was the other half of their soul?

He must be naïve indeed to be feeling as he was feeling. But he knew with blinding clarity that what had happened between him and Viola two evenings ago on the riverbank at Pinewood had merely confirmed what he had known about himself most of his life. He would rather go celibate through life than engage in sex for its own sake.

He wrapped his arms about her and kissed her mouth when she raised her face to his.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asked her. But he set one finger over her lips before she had a chance to answer. “You must be honest. I'll never bed you unless you want it too.”

Her lips curved beneath his silencing finger. “What if I never want it?”

“Then I'll have to find some other solution for you,” he said. “But you are not going back to your old life. I'll not allow it.”

Her smile was purely Viola's, not that other woman's, he was glad to see. It seemed to be tinged with sadness. “Do you have any say in the matter?” she asked him.

“I dashed well do,” he told her. “You are my woman.”

Not mistress—
woman
. There was a difference. He had spoken without forethought, but he knew that he had spoken a true thing. He was responsible for her. He had no legal obligation to her and no legal right to demand obedience from her. Nevertheless, she was his woman.

“Stay with me,” she said. “I do not want to be alone tonight. And I do want you.”

She could trust him, he almost told her. Through most of his life he had trusted no one but himself, knowing that even those people nearest and dearest to him could let him down at any moment and make the firm earth beneath his feet feel more like quicksand. He had trusted in himself and had never done anything he considered truly shameful or dishonorable. She could trust him too. He would be the Rock of Gibraltar for her. But how could he say the words without sounding like a foolish, boastful boy?

He would have to
show
her that he was to be trusted, that was all. Only time would accomplish that.

In the meantime, she had told him that she wanted him. And by God, he wanted her too. She had been pulsing like a fever in his blood all day long. And yesterday too when he had come chasing after her.

He drew her into his arms and kissed her hungrily. She wrapped her arms about him and kissed him back in the same way. But he remembered suddenly that until less than half an hour before she had been sitting in his carriage since their last posting stop.

“Go into your dressing room and make yourself comfortable,” he said. “Come back in ten minutes' time.”

She smiled slowly at him. “Thank you,” she said.

He was glad almost fifteen minutes later that he had done it. He was sitting on the side of the bed, the covers turned back, when she returned. He had stripped down to his riding breeches. She was wearing a nightgown, perhaps the same one she had worn the night he broke the urn. It was white and virginal and covered her from neck to wrists to bare feet. Her hair had been unbraided and brushed until it shone like copper. It was loose and billowed down her back almost to her bottom. She could not have looked more desirable if she had come to him naked. Or if the single candle had been gleaming off the scarlet trappings he had half expected to find in this bedchamber.

She came toward him, and he spread his knees and reached out his hands so that she could come right to the edge of the bed and stand against him. He set his hands on either side of her small waist and rested his face in the valley between her breasts. The nightgown had a freshly washed smell. So did she. The most enticing feminine perfume, he discovered in that moment, was soap
and woman. Her fingers smoothed lightly through his hair.

“Do you want me to undress?” she asked him. “I was not sure.”

“No.” He got to his feet and pulled the bedcovers back farther. “Lie down. Let me see you there before I blow out the candle.”

“You want to blow it out?” she asked him as she lay down and smoothed her nightgown over her knees.

“Yes.”

It was not that he did not want to see her. It was certainly not that he would be embarrassed by his own nakedness. After all, they had been naked together just two nights before in moonlight. He was not quite sure why he wanted darkness. Or why he wanted her to keep her nightgown on. Perhaps there would be more of fantasy in it—the illusion that they were not man and mistress having sex for his pleasure, but a couple, finding warmth and comfort in each other's bodies in the bed where they slept together.

He blew out the candle, removed his breeches and drawers, and lay down beside her. He slid one arm beneath her head, and she turned against him and found his mouth with her own.

“Make love to me, Ferdinand,” she said. “As you did two nights ago. Please. No one else had ever made love to me. Just you. You were the first.”

His hands moved over her warm curves, on top of the nightgown. “I don't know how to please you,” he said. “But I'll learn if you will be patient with me. I want to please you more than anything else in life.”

“You pleased me,” she told him. “More than anyone or anything ever has done before. And you please me now. You feel good. You smell good.”

He laughed softly. He had washed, but he did not have any of his colognes with him. She did not mind his inexperience, he realized. Perhaps it was something that appealed more than expertise would have to Viola Thornhill.

It was Viola Thornhill with whom he was making love. In some strange way she had come virgin to him. He felt gifted—and vaguely disturbed. But he pushed back the latter feeling. It was only as his mistress that he could keep her safe.

She did not mind his inexperience and so he relaxed and did not mind it himself any longer. He explored her with his hands, learning every curve of his woman, while desire heated his blood and tightened his groin and stiffened his erection. He began to discover the places—some of them unexpected—that drew soft purrs of pleasure or slow gasps of desire from her. He began to know her.

And then he slipped his hand beneath her nightgown and moved it upward, along her slim, smooth legs to the heart of her. She was hot and moist. She parted her thighs and her hands fell still on his body as his fingers explored her, learned the folds and the secrets of her, slid inside her. He hardened to almost unbearable arousal as her inner muscles clenched about his fingers.

And then by some instinct the pad of his thumb found a small part of her at the mouth of her opening and rubbed lightly over it. He knew immediately that he had discovered perhaps her most intense pleasure spot. She trembled, her hands gripping his sides, and cried out as she shuddered into what could only be a feminine orgasm.

He laughed softly after she had finished. “Can I possibly be that good?” he asked her.

She laughed with him, her voice breathless and a little
shaky. “I think you must be,” she said. “What did you
do?”