Rules of Passion (12 page)

“Perhaps you should—”

“Miss Greentree.” He sounded chilly, once again a stranger. Surprised and dismayed, Marietta met his eyes and waited. “I know you mean well, and I appreciate your kindness in thinking of me, but I am fit enough now. I am sure you have many far more important matters that require your attention—your…your sister, and so on—and that you will be relieved to return to them.”

He was giving her her marching orders. In a polite and ducal manner, he was saying that he’d had enough of her. After all she had done for him! Marietta felt something hot and angry catch alight inside
her, and knew from the way in which his gaze was suddenly arrested that he saw the reflection of it in her eyes.

“I don’t think you quite understand, my lord,” she said firmly. “I’m not going anywhere—at least not just yet.”

“Miss Greentree, I have nothing to offer that could possibly interest you. And I certainly don’t want your pity…”

“Goodness me, if you think I care a jot about your appalling situation then you are quite wrong, Max. You can mope about your big empty house feeling sorry for yourself all you like. That is entirely your affair.”

Good, she had made him angry. Even as he struggled to control it, she saw it in the tightening of his mouth and the lowering of his eyebrows.

“Then what
do
you want?” he demanded grumpily.

That was more like it—Marietta smiled. “I have a proposition to put to you, Max.”

He didn’t look happy. “What sort of proposition?” he asked suspiciously.

Marietta had thought about this moment, and she knew that to win Max over she had to appeal to his gentlemanly instincts. The very things that might prevent her from completing the tasks that Aphrodite would set her.

She drew the chair up close beside his bed and sat down on it, ignoring the way he stiffened, and launched into her speech. “I have already told you that my mother is Aphrodite, my
real
mother that is. When I was barely more than a baby I was kidnapped with my two sisters, and taken away from her. I’ve only been reunited with her for a few short
years, but it has been long enough to convince me that I would like to follow in her footsteps. I want to be a courtesan, Lord Roseby.”

He didn’t say anything, although he turned even paler and his eyes seemed riveted on hers.

“I know this is not the sort of ambition usually expressed by a genteel young lady—but then I am not like other genteel young ladies. I-I am unlikely to make a good marriage, the sort of marriage I once believed I would make. When I was younger I did something very foolish, Max. I fell under the spell of a most unsuitable man and, when my family refused to contemplate marriage, I was persuaded by my beloved to run away to the Scottish border.”

“Miss Greentree,” he said, and it was a plea for her to stop.

Marietta had no intention of stopping. “Of course he never meant to marry me, and after we halted for the night and he…well, ruined me, he left me there. The incident could have been hushed up, that was certainly what my Uncle William Tremaine would have preferred, but by an unfortunate coincidence one of my mother’s—that is, Lady Greentree’s—disgruntled employees was staying at the same inn, and he recognized me. He took great pleasure in spreading the story about, and soon it was everywhere. I suppose the additional fact that it had recently become known that I was Aphrodite’s daughter, made my misfortune lurid enough to capture the imagination of the entire country.”

She knew she was flushed with anger and humiliation, but even Max’s pitying look wasn’t going to stop her now.

“So…my reputation was destroyed, and I have
little hope of making the sort of marriage I always believed I would. All the more reason to become a courtesan like my mother.”

“Miss Greentree.”

“No, let me finish, Max. As a courtesan I can live a free and unfettered life, without any ties and responsibilities except to myself and those men I decide to favor with my…eh, gifts. I am not at all conventional, Lord Roseby, and I don’t fear the censure of my peers—besides, I mean to take on a new identity to protect my family. I am quite determined in this matter, but I know I cannot do it alone. I need Aphrodite’s approval. I need her patronage and her help.”

“Miss Greentree—” he croaked desperately.

“I have spoken to her in regard to my wishes and she has agreed to help me, on the condition that I prove to her that I am serious in my desire. And to do that I must first play at being a courtesan with a gentleman who will agree to act as my practice partner. A temporary affair, my mother calls it, to enable me to learn some of the skills I will need, and at the same time refine them upon a willing gentleman. She thinks it is important that we take these precautions, in case I change my mind—I assure you, Max, I won’t! But to please my mother the gentleman must be discreet, so that there will be no harm done. Well apart from what has been done already, I suppose. But the world will see me as no different—in their eyes the affair never happened—
that
is the important thing.”

She leaned closer, meeting his unblinking gaze with a humorless little smile. “So there you are, Max. I need a discreet gentleman to help me prove
to Aphrodite that I have the aptitude to become a courtesan.”

“I don’t want to hear any more,” Max said, and his mouth was hard and straight. “I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no, no and no.”

“Why not? My mother thinks you are just the man for the part. Don’t you want to spend the entire night with me, Max?” She gave him her wide-eyed and innocent look.

Max’s eyes turned dark but he struggled on. “How can you imagine for a moment that a gentleman would even consider such a preposterous and ridiculous—”

“Please, listen to me,” Marietta cut through his outburst, reaching out to rest her hand on his sleeve. “Just listen,” she insisted. “Aphrodite suggested that you might be the very man I need because you
are
a gentleman.”

He was watching her as one might watch a dangerous serpent—very warily. “So when you say ‘practice’ you do not mean we would actually…?”

“I would try out my skills on you, such as they are, and you would react. You in turn would teach me from your own experience—which Aphrodite assures me is vast. There may be limits to what we can do, I don’t know.” She shrugged to show her indifference to the possibility that they may actually lie together in a bed like this. As though her heart was not slamming in her chest like a steam train.

Max knew he was too weak to cope with this now. He knew he shouldn’t make any decisions or say anything until he’d had a good night’s sleep. He knew all this, and still he was fascinated by her
suggestion—fascinated and horrified, all at the same time. A temporary affair, was that what she really wanted? Testing out her skills on him, practicing at being a courtesan like her mother? And he was meant to be her, what, her mentor? Giving her hints on how to…to make a man insensible with lust? He swallowed, his imagination working furiously.

It was bizarre. It was…tempting. Too tempting, because he wanted her, and a voice in his head was telling him that this was the ideal way in which to have what he wanted.

Marietta Greentree had just offered him the perfect arrangement.

And yet he felt compelled to put up some sort of resistance—for the sake of his upbringing as well as his already complicated life. “Marietta, a gentleman does not, under any circumstances, compromise a lady. And you, despite your parentage, are very much a lady.”

Marietta sighed impatiently and shook her head at him as if he was slow-witted. “That is the whole point of choosing
you
. You are too much the gentleman to spread rumors, Max. And what is the use of being a lady if my reputation causes every gentleman who meets me to turn tail and run? You are involved in a scandal yourself, you know what it is like. I have had to suffer that for four years!”

“You will fall in love again and—”

She gave a bitter little laugh that he had not heard from her before. “No, I will not. I have no intention of ever loving a man again so that he can break my heart and destroy my life. I am not a fool, and I learn quickly, and that is one lesson I have learned well.”

She meant it. He could see it in her eyes. Behind smiling and beautiful Marietta Greentree was another woman, a somber woman, and she had been broken and she had been hurt. And she had not recovered. Max felt something hot and violent streak through him.

“What is his name?” he demanded.

She stopped, looking puzzled. “His name?”

“The man who did that to you. What is his name, who is he?”

Something else flickered in her eyes—she was disappointed in him, and at first he didn’t understand why. “You want to know his name? Is that so you can ask him the details? I assure you, Max, that I have told you the truth. If you have not heard of my plight…well, you have only to make inquiries. Some kind soul will be only too pleased to educate you on the finer points of my ruination and disgrace.”

He shook his head impatiently. “I’m not interested in that. I want to know his name so that I can break his neck.”

She was shocked. The thought that his righteous anger on her behalf was new to her made him even more furious. Had she no brothers or a father to avenge her lost honor? No, clearly not. Marietta Greentree had no Max Valland to ride on his white charger to her rescue, and the injustice of it made his heart ache.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she said at last, biting her lip to hide a smile. He had pleased her. “I appreciate it, Max, truly, but I want to put all that behind me. I don’t know where he is, and nor do I want to. I am looking to the future, to my life as a
courtesan. If you want to play the gallant hero, then that is where you can do the most good. Help me to learn about passion and desire.”

Passion and desire, dear God…

His head had begun to spin. Her fingers, resting lightly on his arm, felt hot and heavy.

“I have no money,” he began bleakly.

“Max, it doesn’t matter if you have no money. This is a temporary affair where we both take what we want from each other and nobody is the richer or the poorer for it. Don’t you understand? We can do what we like, as long as neither of us is hurt.”

It sounded like something he had dreamed about when he was a younger man, being given the go-ahead to make love to a beautiful girl without thinking of the consequences. But he was a grown man now, and he knew very well that there were always consequences. Always.

“I suppose I can ask someone else instead,” she said mildly, her eyes wide with innocence. “There must be lots of other gentlemen in London who will agree to have an affair with me. Perhaps you could furnish me with a list?”

“No, I bloody can’t!” he growled.

“Oh?” Those eyes gazed guilelessly into his. “Then
you
will just have to do it, Max. Come now, it won’t be too horrible, I’m sure. We are not at all suited, so there is no fear that we will become attached or anything foolish like that. Courtesans don’t become attached, you know, it’s bad for business.”

She was manipulating him, Max knew it and yet he was too muzzy-headed to think clearly—or so he told himself. In fact his body, weak as it was, was al
ready humming with anticipation. An affair with Marietta Greentree! He hadn’t been looking forward to anything so much in years, and to come now, at this time, when his life was at such a low ebb. It was like a gift. He knew he would be a fool to refuse it.

A knock on the door proceeded Daniel and Pomeroy with a tray. Marietta gasped at the sight of it, for as well as a teapot, cups and accompaniments, Mrs. Pomeroy had provided sandwiches, cakes and scones.

“Oh, how wonderful!” she gasped, turning from Pomeroy to Daniel. “Thank you so much, and thank your wife, Pomeroy. I am quite overcome.”

Beaming, the two men left the room. Marietta set about pouring two cups of tea and busying herself over the tray, and all the while she could feel Max watching her. He looked so tense she was sure if she touched him he would feel like a fire poker. But that he hadn’t refused her outright must mean something, and hope was growing inside her despite all her efforts to be calm.

“You’ve deliberately caught me at a weak moment, Marietta.”

He was frowning at her, but his eyes had a rather endearing expression of confusion.

“Tea?” she asked blithely.

“I cannot imagine what you are thinking to suggest such a thing to me—”

“I am thinking you might be thirsty.” Then, when he looked about ready to throttle her, “I’m sorry, Max. But I want to be a courtesan. I want to take control from those who have judged and sentenced me,
and live my own life, and I see this as a way to do so. I am not afraid, Max.”

He shook his head. The shadows under his eyes had deepened but his voice was strong. “You don’t realize what it will mean. You don’t understand. Desire gets into your blood, until you crave it. Even if you decide you want to stop you may find you are not able to.”

“Well, then, you will have to teach me all about desire and craving it.” Marietta munched on a sandwich. “Just pretend to be in thrall with me, and I can weave my…my spell on you.”

He smiled. Marietta felt that small hope beginning to blossom.
Max had smiled.

“Your spell,” he repeated with heavy disbelief. “I see. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Then you agree?”

“Yes, I agree. But reluctantly, and only to save you from yourself, or some other man who would not be as scrupulous as me.”

He sounded extremely pompous, but she was too happy to care. “Oh, thank you, Max!” She wanted to hug him, but he didn’t look like he’d appreciate that, so she handed him a scone instead. He inspected it and then closed his eyes. “I don’t think I can eat,” he said weakly.

“Well, you will have to try. Mrs. Pomeroy has made an amazing effort and I can’t eat it all. What about the tea? Shall I help you with that? It’s the least I can do, Max, when you are being so kind and generous as to have an affair with me.”

He seemed to think that was amusing, but Marietta didn’t ask him why. Instead she came and
perched beside him on the bed and raised the cup to his lips.