Her lips mocked too, though her breathing was not quite steady, and he lowered both his head and his body and moved in her with deep, firm, rhythmic strokes, prolonging the intense, painful pleasure of their coupling for as long as he could before releasing into her and relaxing all his weight down onto her as the blood pounding through his temples gradually subsided and he wondered if he had waited long enough to give her too the ultimate pleasure.
He was ashamed of the fact that he was not sure.
"Cassandra," he murmured as he withdrew from her and moved off her to lie beside her, his arm still beneath her head.
But there was nothing else to say. The exhaustion of sexual satiety overpowered him and he slid into a deep, satisfied sleep.
He was not sure how long he slept. But when he awoke he was alone – and still dressed in evening clothes that were going to be horribly rumpled.
His valet would scold for a month and threaten to resign and find a gentleman who had greater respect for his skills.
The flap of his breeches had been neatly raised and buttoned, he realized with a flash of embarrassment.
The candles were no longer flickering. But the room was not quite dark.
The light of early dawn was graying the window and the room itself. The curtains had been drawn back.
He turned his head and looked toward the dressing table. Lady Paget was sitting sideways before it, looking back at him. She was dressed, though not in last evening's gown. Her hair had been brushed smoothly back from her face and tied neatly with a ribbon at the nape of her neck. It fell in a thick column down her back. She had her legs crossed. One foot was swinging back and forth, a slipper half off it.
"Cassandra?" he said. "I am so sorry. I must have – "
"We need to talk, Lord Merton," she said. /Lord Merton?/ Not Stephen any longer?
"Do we?" he said. "Would it not – "
"Business," she said. "We need to talk business."
/6/
CASSANDRA had been awake for a long time. Indeed, she had done no more than doze a couple of times.
She stared for a long time at the ugly canopy above her head. She must remove it, she decided, or at least find a way to cover it with a fabric that was lighter and more cheerful. She must make the house into a home – if she was to remain here, that was. If she could afford to remain here.
And she turned her head and stared at the Earl of Merton for a long while in the flickering light of the candle. How very extravagant of her to let it burn! She had not extinguished the candles in the hall or on the landing either. As if she had /money/ to burn.
He slept deeply and apparently dreamlessly. He looked as beautiful in sleep as he did when he was awake. His hair, short as it was, was rumpled and had freed itself of the combing that had tamed the waves and curls.
He looked younger.
He looked innocent.
He was /not/ innocent – not sexually, anyway. There had not been a great deal of foreplay, either before they lay on the bed or after, and their actual coupling had lasted no longer than a few minutes. But he had known what he was doing. He was a passionate and accomplished lover even if a bit rushed on their first encounter.
Cassandra thought he was probably a very decent man from a decent family. For a moment she regretted choosing him. But it was too late now to choose again and to choose differently. She did not have the time to dally with several lovers before picking the one who best suited her.
Finally, when early dawn was beginning to gray the windows and make the candle's light unnecessary, she could lie in bed no longer. She edged away from him so as not to wake him, but he did not even stir. His arm was still stretched out along the bottom edge of her pillow, the fabric of his evening coat noticeably creased where her head had lain. She leaned over him and very carefully lifted and buttoned the flap of his breeches, darting looks up into his face as her fingers worked.
He must, she thought, look quite magnificent without his clothes.
Next time she would see him. She felt an unexpected eagerness for that moment.
She got up from the bed, extinguished the candle, noting ruefully how much it had burned down, and let herself quietly into the small, cramped dressing room beside the bedchamber. Without the benefit of any light, she chose a day dress from the wardrobe there and pulled it on, after first washing her hands and face in the cold water that remained in the pitcher from last evening. She felt for a hair ribbon on the upper shelf of the wardrobe and brushed back her hair and secured it at her neck.
All the time she could feel a slight soreness within, where he had been.
It had been a long time…
Surprisingly, it was a rather pleasant feeling.
He was still not awake when she returned to the bedchamber. She drew back the curtains from the window and stood for a few moments looking down at the street, which was still quiet despite the fact that the darkness of night was fast lifting. Finally a laborer hurried past, head down.
And then she went to sit on the chair before her dressing table, turning it so that she could see the man on the bed and know when he awoke.
It amazed her that he had not woken long before now, eager to resume the pleasures of the night. Her lip curled with scorn that he had not done so. Had she played her part so poorly? Or supremely well?
She crossed her legs and swung one foot idly until he finally stirred.
It took him a while to come fully awake and to turn his head and see her sitting there.
"Cassandra?" he said. "I am so sorry. I must have – "
She cut him off. She did not want to know for what he was apologizing.
For sleeping so long? The morning was still so early that even the tradesmen were not in the street yet, only that one laborer, who might have been on his way home from his night work. Or did he apologize for sleeping at all instead of availing himself of her willing body as many times as the night allowed?
He spoke her name as if it were a caress.
He had spoken it, she remembered, after he had finished with her body – as if she were not /simply/ a woman's body made for his pleasure, but a person with a name.
She must be careful not to be seduced by this man. It was /she/ who was the seducer.
"We need to talk, Lord Merton," she said.
"Do we?" he said, raising himself on one elbow, a smile in his eyes.
"Would it not – " – /be better to tumble back into bed and talk later if at all?/ "Business," she said before he could finish. "We need to talk business."
This was the moment upon which the whole of her future hinged. She continued to swing one foot, careful not to increase the speed or otherwise show how tensely nervous she was. She half closed her eyes, half smiled.
"Business?" He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, brushed his hands rather ineffectually over his clothes, and attempted to tidy the fall of his neckcloth. He still looked like a man who had slept fully clothed.
"I did not seduce you," she said, "for the pleasure of just one night in your company, Lord Merton. Especially when you slept through most of it."
"I beg your – " he began.
She held up one hand.
"I take your sleeping so soundly as a tribute to the pleasure I gave you," she said. "I slept through most of the night too. You are a very… satisfactory lover." She curved her lips upward at the corners.
He did not say anything.
"I want you tonight again and tomorrow night and every night into the foreseeable future," she said. "And I can see to it that you will want me equally as much and for at least as long, Lord Merton. Or do I not need to employ further seduction? Do you already want it?"
His answer gave her a slight jolt of alarm.
"I do not like the word /seduction/," he said. "It suggests weakness on the part of the seduced and cold calculation on the part of the seducer.