“Your price is high.”
“The easier for you to decline, I thought”
“Did you really?”
“What?”
“Think I’d decline.”
“In all honesty, I was hoping you might” She softly sighed. “It would make everything so much easier. You understand that, don’t you?”
“I understand I’m going to be jumping through considerable hoops.” His brows rose. “It must have taken you some time just to write down all those conditions.”
“They’re necessary. I don’t want you compromising me.”
“In public, you mean,” he drawled, his gaze openly carnal.
“Of course in public. If sex with you was compromising, I would have long since been in jeopardy, now wouldn’t I? Really, darling, such ingenuousness. Have you been amusing yourself with virgins of late?”
“I’ve never had a taste for virgins.”
“I’m gratified to hear it.”
“With one exception, of course,” he said, softly. “Long, long ago. And that particular instance still remains one of my fondest memories.”
Her blush was evident even in the dim light. “Kindly refrain from journeying down memory lane. You and I have come too far.” She lifted her hand in a small sweeping gesture. “As you see.”
“Very well… then we’d better get to it,” he said briskly, rising to his feet. “Since you’ve stipulated I must leave by half-past one.”
“I need my rest I have two children to teach.”
He kicked off his shoes. “And one client to please.”
She refused to be baited. Her smile couldn’t have been improved upon by the actress, Sarah Kemble, herself. “Perhaps if I don’t please you, you may not return, and I’ll no longer have to deal with your impudence.”
His narrowed gaze held hers as he slid off his dinner jacket and waistcoat “Rest assured, darling, you always please me. Now, kindly take off your nightgown. We don’t have much time.”
When she didn’t move, he half smiled. “If we’re going to play by these rules, you’ll have to do your part.”
“I don’t have to do anything except leave tomorrow when you go hunting. You’re the one who wants something. You’re the one who’s disturbing my sleep and life. I’m perfectly content to pretend I barely know you. In fact, I would prefer it. So, don’t give me orders.”
“Or,” he said, softly, “I could take you away, now, this minute, anywhere I chose, so perhaps I can give orders after all.”
“I’ll scream.” She smiled. “Checkmate.”
“Maybe I don’t care if you scream. Maybe I don’t care what Ian and Jane think. By the time they can get out of bed, I’ll have you downstairs and into my carriage.”
“It’s not harnessed.”
“How do you know?” He smiled. “Checkmate.” A brittle silence fell.
“Now take off your nightgown.” He slid his suspenders down his arms. “What if I don’t want to?”
“I gave you five hundred pounds. You have to.” She scowled. “You’re not making this very easy.”
“Whoa.” He held up his hands. “Who’s not making this easy?”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right about that,” he said, grimly, “life isn’t always about you having what you want when you want it.”
“You seem to be having your way more than I.” She snorted. “If that were the case, you would be back downstairs in your bedroom and I would be peacefully sleeping.”
“So you have no interest in making love?” His voice was velvety and low, his dark gaze heated and what she wanted was always equivocal when Simon was close. “I can’t afford to lose this job,” she said, her voice trembling slightly at the last.
“You don’t need a job. I’ll take care of you.” “For how long? You see how practical I’ve become.”
“If you need money, I’ll give it to you.”
She glared at him. “Of course I need money.
What a stupid thing to say. Do you think I’d be a governess if I had money?“
He blew out a breath. ‘Jesus, Caro, tell me what you want me to do.“
“I want you to leave me alone.”
He was silent
“Did you hear me?” Challenge in each syllable.
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Of course you can.”
He shook his head again. “No, I can’t” Although the reasons he couldn’t weren’t entirely clear. Or maybe they were clear, but he refused to acknowledge them. Or maybe wanting and having were two different things, although the wanting part wasn’t open to discussion right now. He began unbuttoning the collar button on his evening shirt.
“Simon, don’t!”
“I’m willing to accede to your rules, but that’s all I’m willing to do. I’m not leaving. So scream if you wish.”
“And if I do?”
“I’ll take you away, right now, this minute.”
“I hate you,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t”
“Then I should.”
“Don’t. I’ll live with your ridiculous rules. That makes you triumphant”
“Damn you, Simon!”
He smiled. “Is that a yes?”
“Only to the most obtuse.”
“I doubt you’re obtuse either. Make up your mind.” He glanced at the clock. “If we’re staying here, there’s not much time left.”
He’d take her away if she refused; he’d made that plain. “No comments in public, now?”
“I’ll be completely circumspect”
“You won’t be staying long, will you?”
“Probably not,” he lied. His curfew tonight was less than two hours away and he didn’t want to waste it in further conversation.
“Very well.”
He laughed. “Your enthusiasm is gratifying.”
She glanced at his obvious erection. “It doesn’t seem to have affected your interest.”
“We’ve missed you.”
“I suspect you say that to all your women.”
“Are you mine, then?”
She took note of the time. “For an hour and a half I am.”
“I’m flattered,” he said as casually. “Would you like me to undress you?”
“In these kind of arrangements, don’t the ladies usually undress themselves?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” he asked with a hard look, his hands arrested on one gold cuff link.
“Good God, Simon. I didn’t sleep my way across Europe, so kindly stop acting like a jealous husband.”
His eyes narrowed further as he set the cuff link on the bedside table. “Did your husband have reason to be jealous?”
“Are we questioning degrees of intemperance here? Because I don’t think you of all people have the right. And I doubt, in these circumstances, you grill the ladies you’re about to sleep with on their virtue.”
“I’ve never exactly thought of you in those terms.” He slid the second cuff link free, set it aside and tugged his shirt out of his trousers.
“Then don’t start. But if you’d rather, I wouldn’t mind saying good night and best wishes for your future. Truthfully, I’d prefer that.”
“No.” His voice was unrelenting and partly muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head. He tossed it aside.
“Yes, Captain.”
He went still, his gaze shuttered. “I haven’t heard that for a long time.”
“Your scars stand out in the candlelight.” His nude torso was burnished by the flickering light, his virility impossible to ignore.
‘They’re almost gone,“ he said, brusquely.
They weren’t, nor would they ever be, she thought, remembering how she’d helped care for him when he came back from Waterloo, nearly dead.
He didn’t remember the misery of those days, he recalled instead the bewitching game they’d played as he’d recuperated. His sigh was part memory, part regret. “What the hell went wrong?” he murmured.
She didn’t need clarification. She shrugged. “Too many things to count.” She looked past him for a moment, at a loss to even begin to define when the ruin had begun. Then her gaze returned to his and she suddenly smiled. “Do you want to play because I don’t want to remember the disasters.”