Though she trusted his good intentions about their mission, that was all she trusted. As a spy, he was an untested amateur. On a personal level, he was like a loose cannon on the deck of a ship: uncontrolled and dangerous. Maggie could pretend to a sophistication that played at love without being burned, but she knew how perilously thin her facade was. For her, lack of deep feeling was an act. For Rafe Whitbourne, it was the real thing.
When Inge announced that the duke had arrived, Maggie schooled her face to pleasantness and went to join him. When she entered the salon, her attention was distracted from the concerns of spying by Rafe's admiring expression.
"You look splendid tonight, Countess. Thank you for wearing that dress. It will go very well."
"Go very well with what?"
He held out a velvet-covered box. "With these."
Maggie opened the box, then caught her breath at the sight of an emerald necklace and earrings of dazzling beauty. Delicate gold settings entwined with flawless stones to create jewelry that looked light and airy while at the same being indecently sumptuous. "For heaven's sake, Rafe, what are these for?"
"For you, of course."
"I can't possibly accept anything this valuable. People would think…" She stopped.
"That you were my mistress? That is the point, my dear."
His voice was deep and caressing, and for one perilous moment she considered what it would like be to be his mistress in fact as well as fiction. Then her jaw hardened.
Even though he was the most attractive man she'd ever known, she'd be damned if she would let this unreliable nobleman conquer her, no matter how much they would both enjoy it. Conquest was still conquest, and she was no man's trophy.
She snapped the box shut and handed it back. "A queen's ransom in gems is not necessary to our charade, your grace."
Undeterred, Rafe said, "But it is necessary. Half of London society is in Paris now, and my habits are not exactly a secret. I've always given bits of trumpery to my lady friends. People would think it strange if I didn't do the same with you."
"Bits of trumpery!" she said with exasperation. "You could buy half an English county with the value of these."
"You exaggerate, my dear. No more than a quarter, and it would have to be a small county at that."
His smile invited her to be amused, and Maggie could not resist laughing with him. "Very well, if you insist, I will accept the loan of these until our masquerade is done. Then you can store them away for your next genuine mistress."
Taking the box from her hand, Rafe steered her over to a pier glass hanging between two of the windows. He stood behind her and deftly unhooked her simple jade necklace.
"But these emeralds wouldn't be appropriate for just any woman. They will look best on one whose eyes will turn green to match." He lifted the necklace from the box. "Someone with the style and countenance to wear what you call a queen's ransom without being overpowered by it. I can't think of another woman they would suit as well."
Rafe placed the necklace around her neck, his warm hands contrasting with the cool touch of the gems. Her ball gown was cut very low, exposing her neck, shoulders, and a dramatic expanse of bosom, and she felt suddenly naked as his fingers brushed her bare skin. Desire coiled inside her, tense and demanding. When she was eighteen, she had first explored the nearer edges of sexuality with this same impossible, attractive man, and time had only deepened her yearning.
Her gaze met Rafe's in the mirror. His hands came to rest on her exposed, sensitive shoulders and when he spoke there was no teasing undertone in his voice.
"Margot, why can't we forget all the complications of our past and be ourselves? You are the most irresistible woman I have ever known. Being so close to you without touching is in a fair way to driving me mad." He began gently massaging the back of her neck with his thumbs. "I want you, and I think you want me, too. Why can't we be lovers in truth?"
He was no longer the polished, sardonic duke who set her nerves on edge, but the direct young man she had fallen in love with. Her heart ached for what they had once had, am lost. Struggling for sanity, she said weakly, "It would be a mistake."
Bending over, he kissed the edge of her ear where it showed beneath her golden hair, then nibbled down her neck. His hands skimmed down her bare arms with feather lightness, then wrapped around her waist to pull her back against him. She gasped and tried to ignore the fiery reaction his touch aroused.
"We are both adults, old enough to know what we want," he whispered in his deep, velvet-rich voice. "No one would be hurt, and I know we would find a rare pleasure together." His hands brushed upward to cup her breasts. Slowly he moved them in a circle, and she felt her nipples harden against his palms.
Involuntarily she rolled her hips into his groin. When a hard ridge of flesh pressed against her, she forced herself to be still. "No, blast you!" she said breathlessly. "Nothing is that simple."
His right hand slipped into her bodice and he began teasing her nipple. At the same time, his left hand stroked down her torso to the jointure of her thighs. "Do you really mean no?" he asked as his knowing hands found her most sensitive places. "Your words say one thing, but your body says another."
There was too much truth in what he said, and the fire in her body was no fiercer than the torrent of confusion in her mind. Of course she wanted him. She was weak with longing, and dared not admit how perilously close she was to consigning past and future to the devil and letting him make love to her in the intoxicating present.
But she had learned self-control in the hardest of schools, and even now she knew that he was wrong to claim that no one would be hurt by what they did. She would be more than hurt; she would be devastated if she fell in love with Rafe again. Losing him once had nearly destroyed her, and no handful of days as his mistress could be worth the agony that intimacy would bring.
As she tried to find the strength she needed to break away, he murmured, "I promise that you won't be the poorer for it, Margot. The emeralds are only the beginning."
He wanted her to be his whore.
The knowledge gave her the fury she needed to resist. She jerked away, unconsciously raising one arm defensively. "No means No\ If I'd meant yes, I would have said yes!"
As she whirled around, her elbow clubbed his solar plexus with a force that knocked all the wind out of him. Rafe gasped and staggered back.
Appalled, Maggie stared at him, backing up until she was pressed against the pier table under the mirror. In a stifled voice, she said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you."
He straightened up, fighting for breath. His gray eyes weren't cool now; they blazed with anger, and something more. Maggie had never felt physically afraid of Rafe, but now she was acutely aware of the height and breadth and sheer athletic strength of him.
She had wounded his pride, and that was a far graver blow than an accidental elbow.
The moments it took for Rafe to regain his breath gave him time to grab the last shreds of his temper. "It's fortunate for you that I was taught never to strike a woman," he said with icy fury. "If you were a man, I would teach you a lesson you would never forget."
"Surely if I were a man, this situation would not have arisen," she said tremulously.
Rafe's anger began to fade. "No, I suppose it wouldn't have. I'm rather conventional in my preferences."
She gave him an uncertain smile. "Will you forgive me if I promise not to hit you again unless I mean it?"
He had to smile. "Forgiven."
Her gaze dropped and she busied herself with putting on her evening gloves. He guessed that she had been deeply affected to lash out like that, and that was promising. Yet he felt a stirring of guilt at having caused her unhappiness.