“Betraying you?”
She nodded.
A familiar calculating gleam entered his eyes. “Ah, but that’s exactly why what I offer is better than any marriage.” His hands rubbed her thighs, slowly, caressingly…temptingly. If Satan were a seducer, that was how he’d do it, too. “We can enjoy our pleasure without fearing that one of us will destroy the other—as spouses so often do. And when we tire of each other—”
“What if I don’t tire of you before you tire of me? Two people needn’t be married to destroy each other—just witness the havoc that Lady Caroline Lamb’s behavior has wreaked upon her lover Byron and her own family.”
He quirked up one eyebrow. “I somehow can’t imagine you threatening me with a knife at a dinner party.”
“Are you forgetting that I shot at you? If I came to care for you, and you treated me as you do your other women, I don’t know what I might do. As I said, it’s not in my nature to fall in and out of a man’s bed without a thought.”
His fingers dug into her thighs. “So you mean to remain celibate all your life? No marriage, no lover, no one but your aging father to keep you company?”
She swallowed. In typical Byrne fashion, he’d left out the most important thing—no children. Since she was probably barren, a new marriage would be difficult. Most men wanted women who could bear them sons.
With a sigh, she pushed his hands from her thighs and slid off the table. “I haven’t thought that far.”
“And no wonder.” Refusing to move away, he planted his hands on the table on either side of her to keep her trapped there. He bent his head, his mouth brushing her ear as he lowered his voice to an achingly seductive whisper. “Until tonight, you didn’t know what pleasure was. But now that you know—”
“I must be even more cautious.” Drawing back, she managed a smile. “Besides, you don’t want a jealous mistress who will demand to know where you’ve been, complain when you ignore her, and beg you to share only her bed. That’s precisely the sort I’d be. I drove my own husband to gamble and drink and…who knows what.” She couldn’t keep the pain from her voice. “Only imagine what I’d drive a debaucher like you to do—commit murder, probably.”
Anger flared in his face. “You didn’t drive that fool Haversham into anything, damn it. From the moment
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I met him, I recognized him as one of those thoughtless arses whose thirst for the tables blots out any other consideration in his life. That isn’t your fault.”
His words were like a surgeon’s knife probing flesh for a bullet. “Isn’t it? If I had made him happy at home—”
“Did you ever refuse to let the selfish idiot bed you?”
“No, but—”
“Did you make sure he was well fed?”
“Of course.”
“Did you plaguehim about where he’d been and what he was doing?”
“Not at first. To be honest, I was relieved not to have to play the marchioness in society when I didn’t know the role.”
“So he found you someone to instruct you, did he? Reassured you that you could learn those things? Did his best to help you feel comfortable accompanying him into society?”
His rather pompous dissertation began to annoy her. “Not exactly, but—”
“As I said, a selfish, thoughtless arse. Tell me, Christabel, when you first met him, was your husband a gambler?”
She stuck out her chin. “Moderately so.”
“How do you know he was moderate? Did he ever promise to be somewhere and then not appear, pleading headache or some other nonsense? Was he always the one to suggest cards as the evening’s entertainment? Did his pay often mysteriously disappear—”
“Stop it!” She shoved his arm aside to escape his too-accurate description of a man whose proclivity for gambling even her father had questioned. Once she’d put some distance between them, she faced him.
“You have the audacity to call him selfish and thoughtless when you daily show a complete lack of feeling for the women you bed—”
“The women I bed are as uninterested in my feelings as I am in theirs.” Eyes glittering, he stalked up to her, apparently unconcerned that he was stark naked. “They want the same thing I want from them—pleasure and nothing more.”
“Are you sure? Is that why Lady Jenner went out of her way to provoke me this evening? She was halfway to scratching my eyes out.”
He went rigid. “Her pride was wounded, that’s all.”
“Perhaps. But even if you’re right about her and the others, even if they did want only one thing from you, I can’t be like them. So we’re back to where we started. I simply can’t be the sort of mistress you want. I know my own nature well enough for that.”
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A muttered oath escaped his lips. “Fine. Then perhaps we shouldn’t play Whist for the Wicked anymore.”
“And perhaps you should stop trying to seduce me.”
He arched one eyebrow. “That, my sweet, is not inmy nature.”
Coloring, she bent to pick up his drawers where he’d left them on the floor. “Then perhaps you should go. Here, take these.”
With a glance that would have frozen ice, he walked past her without taking them, headed for the door.
“Keep them. You won them fairly.”
“Byrne, please, at least let me call for your overcoat.”
He stared at her with annoyance. “After tonight, your reputation will be severely tarnished anyway. Since that doesn’t seem to bother you, why do you care if a few servants gossip about how I left your house naked?”
“I just…do.”
His jaw went taut as he laid his hand on the doorknob. He hesitated, then cursed again and opened the door wide enough to call through it. “You there, footman! Bring me my coat.”
There was a ruckus in the hall as someone hurried to do his bidding. Moments later, Byrne thrust his hand out and came back with his coat, then slammed the door.
“Your footman was limping. Another of your ex-soldiers?” he growled as he pulled on his coat and began to button it with jerky movements.
“Yes. He’s missing a foot.”
“Of course.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Only you would hire a footless footman.” He cast her a hooded glance. “You’re the most maddening woman I’ve ever met, do you know that?” He laid his hand on the doorknob again. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“What?” she asked, bewildered.
“Mrs. Watts is coming back, remember? After she leaves, we’ll play cards again—respectablecards, mind you.” He sneered the wordrespectable . “And tomorrow evening we’ll go to the theater, so people will see us together socially. Unless you find that activity not respectable enough for a pretend mistress?”
“No, that’s fine,” she said, a little peevishly. After all, she’d only told him the truth about what she felt. No need for him to be so childish about it. “I like the theater.”
“Of course you do,” he snapped. “Drama is your stock-in-trade.”
But there was a bit of humor in his tone now, as if he, too, recognized that he was overreacting. She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. “So we’re…in agreement? About my not sharing your bed?”
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“We willnever be in agreement about that.” He raked her with a long, heated glance that turned her knees wobbly. “But I’m not one to force a woman to my bed. I can wait until she goes there willingly.” A devilish smile tipped up his lips. “Because that daywill come. It always does.”
And with that arrogant statement, he left.
Only then did she let out a breath. But even after she heard his cabriolet pulling away, she couldn’t relax. She felt bereft, adrift. Restless. Roaming the room, she picked up a stocking here, a garter there, hardly distinguishing between his and hers as she piled them on a chair and prayed she could get them upstairs without the servants seeing.
She picked up his waistcoat, and his scent wafted to her again, a strangely male blend of sweet and musky. Holding the embroidered fabric to her cheek, she felt tears prick her eyes. How familiar this seemed—picking up a man’s discarded clothes. Before Philip had ascended to the title and hired a fancy valet, she’d been the one to gather up his clothes after he returned from a long night out. But Philip’s clothes had reeked of brandy; Byrne’s reeked ofhim . And if she’d wanted—
No, she’d been right to refuse what he offered. Tempting as the man might be and much as she’d secretly love to experience the delights of sharing his bed, she would surely regret it in the end. She sank into a chair with a sigh. Then why, oh why, did it feel as if she’d made an enormous mistake?
After a moment of driving in nothing but his overcoat, Gavin began to wish he’d accepted his drawers when Christabel had offered them. In early autumn, nights in London were plenty cool and damp. The fog seeped under his coat, chilling him to the bone. Damn Christabel for tossing him out when he could have been lying warm and cozy in her bed, making love to her with slow, easy thrusts—
“Bloody hell,” he growled, as his cock stirred once more. The woman would be the death of him. He reached for his watch, then realized she had it. But it couldn’t be that late. He could always go to one of the better brothels to satisfy his lust. Though he rarely frequented whores, sometimes it was necessary. Yet the idea was so unappealing at the moment that it silenced the clamoring of his wayward cock. Odd, that. The whole situation was odd. No woman who clearly wanted him—who aroused him, too—had ever refused him his satisfaction.
That must be the trouble—he hadn’thad Christabel, so no other woman held any appeal. But that would end soon. He would have her, and when he did, it would be all the more worth it for the waiting. Unlike that idiot Haversham, he knew how to savor the anticipation of bedding a woman. He only hoped he didn’t have to savor it too much longer.
At least one good thing had come of tonight. He now knew that his strategy would work. As she’d said, she wasn’t like his other women. Which meant that once he seduced her—and he would, eventually—it would be easier to get everything he wanted from her, including the truth about her “property.”
Of course, there were other risks involved. First, the obvious one—that he might get her with child. He’d always relied on the husbands of his mistresses to claim any child that might occur despite his preventive measures. Still, he’d been glad it had never happened. It would have unsettled him to know
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that some child of his was being raised as another man’s.
But if he somehow got Christabel with child, there would be no husband to claim the babe. So he’d have to be extra cautious. They would both take measures to prevent it—there were sponges a woman could use. She couldn’t possibly have any more desire to bear a bastard than he did to sire one. So that left the second risk—that Christabel would become exactly the kind of mistress she claimed. That she’d turn into a jealous, unpredictable, possessive harpy. He chuckled as a sudden image leaped into his mind, of her dragging out her rifle to take shots at any other woman who demanded his attentions. When he realized that the idea appealed to him, his humor faded abruptly. No self-respecting rakehell wanted a woman waiting impatiently for his arrival every night, hanging on his every word, gazing at him with a longing so profound that it—
He cursed under his breath. This was what came of dallying with respectable women. They put ideas in a man’s head that he would never entertain otherwise.
He liked his life precisely as it was. He’d make her his mistress because he desired her, but he would teach her not to expect more of him than that. Surely even the indomitable Widow Haversham could be made to accept the way of the world eventually.
And if it meant that the light in her eyes and the passion in her heart were extinguished? With an oath, he flicked the reins to speed the horses. That sort of thinking was what had led him to be a fool about Anna Bingham. Never again would he succumb to such dangerous sentimental nonsense. Never again.
Minutes later, he reached his town house in fashionable Mayfair. Before he even halted, a groom hurried out to meet him, and his youngish butler appeared in the window. Gavin paid well for such attention late at night—his hours were odd, and he didn’t like to bother with rousing a servant. His entire household operated on the supposition that morning was night and night was morning. In fact, this was early for him; his dire need for clothes had prevented him from going to the club straight from Christabel’s. He halted his rig, handed the reins to his groom, and climbed down, cursing the lack of his boots when his feet hit gravel.
His butler came outside. “Sir, do you need assistance?”
“No, I can manage.” Gavin gingerly took the few steps to the stone entrance staircase, then shook the stones from beneath his toes.
His butler said naught about Gavin’s bootless, stockingless state; he knew better. But as Gavin climbed the steps, the servant hurried down to meet him instead of waiting at the top as usual. “I thought you’d want to know, sir—you’ve received a message from Bath. The messenger is waiting inside for your reply. I had just sent a footboy to the club for you when you drove up.”
Bath. He tensed. “Thank you, Jenkins.”
He took the remaining steps two at a time. A summons from Bath was never good. The messenger from Bath met him at the top and wordlessly handed him a sealed missive. Gavin groaned. Sealed missives were never good either.
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He tore it open, then scanned the message swiftly. Though the tension left him, it didn’t change what he must do. “Jenkins, as soon as that footboy returns, send him to the livery to have them ready my coach. I mean to leave in an hour. And bring me some paper and a pen. I have to write a note or two before I leave.”
Jenkins nodded. “I’ll take care of it at once, sir.”
Gavin’s jaunt to the theater with Christabel tomorrow night would have to wait. But he’d make it up to her. He’d find some bauble in Bath before he returned.