The Trouble With Being Wicked (28 page)

“There is nothing else to see.”

He waggled his fingers. “Eight rooms.”

She sighed. But a small smile played about her lips. She liked that he’d paid attention.

“I counted them this morning,” he pressed.

The smile surrendered into a laugh. “I did not invite you to do so.”

“I know.”

“I meant I did not invite you into my house.”

“Oh, that.” He waved it away. “I kept waiting for an invitation from the illustrious Celeste Gray, but…” He shrugged. It was Montborne’s bourgeois gesture and it quite suited the moment.
 

She looked at him in surprise. Then she left his side to pace the room, drawing her fingertips across the cushion of a brown fainting couch. “I haven’t entertained in… Well, it doesn’t signify, except to say you would have waited a very long time.”

So she
didn’t
have another protector. He still had a chance. Instead of reveling in the possibility he shrugged again, enjoying the repeat look of astonishment on her face. “One can always hope. And as you see, I didn’t wait long, after all.”

When she remained quiet, watching him with a mixture of amusement and exasperation, he dived in. “I know I’m not the wealthiest man who has offered his protection, but I promise you will want for nothing. Celeste, please… Consider me.” He was aware how vulnerable he sounded. But he had to do something, because not having her was killing him.

Her fingers rubbed back and forth, back and forth against the cushion. Their slow trail maddened him. “What if I’m the kind of mistress who spends money carelessly and incurs debt faster than you can take your pleasure? What if I run through your sisters’ dowries before you can get me out of your system? What then?”

He stepped forward. “Would you? Would you abuse my feelings for you?”

“No!” She looked confused. “
If
I consent to be your plaything, which I have not.”

His gaze bored into hers as he approached another step. “Have you ever been anyone’s plaything?”

She glanced away. She was so vulnerable, so in need of protection. “You make it sound sordid.”

“It doesn’t feel sordid, Celeste. Not anymore.” He took two more steps. Almost to her. He reached to catch her hand but she pulled it away. “Please. Don’t run. I came here last night because I’m yours for the taking. I have never wanted a woman as completely as I want you.”

She paused. His heart wrenched for her. “That is cruel.”

“It’s the truth. You’re under no pressure to accept my offer. I simply feel it is in order to suggest it.”

She tore her gaze from his to look at the floor. “You know I will say yes.”

“Because you have been so obliging of my wishes in the past,” he drawled.

“Cynicism doesn’t suit you.”

“Then I shall only make jests from here on.”

“I will not love you,” she replied, ignoring his attempt to divert her. “Commerce only, and you cannot hold my services indefinitely.”

He didn’t reply to that.

A single tear formed and trickled down her cheek. The rest of her was as composed as a statue. As though she’d cast herself out of stone and walked away, leaving an icon in her place. “What of Montborne? Your sisters? Your marriage?”

“Montborne can rot, my sisters will always be cared for and speaking of my marriage is premature.” Because he couldn’t think of taking a wife now, not when he could have her.

She drew back. Proud. And frightened. “I won’t accept a shilling from you. And you must promise to leave me when I ask it.”

Could he? But then, he would say anything today if it meant she would allow him into her bed tonight. “Agreed.”

“I wish to have it in writing.” Her voluptuous body was so close to his, but it felt like they were building a wall between them.

“My man is in the country, but I will have a contract drawn by the end of the week.”

“And one day off for rest,” she added.

“Your days are your own,” he replied, because he had won.
He had goddamn won
. “Your every night is mine.”

“Engagements are not included,” she said, rosebud lips forming a moue.

He grinned wickedly. “Then we shall stay home.”

“Dinner is not included, either.” Her voice strained. She backed a step, trapping herself against the wall.

He advanced. “Then it is a good thing I only desire dessert.”

“Kissing is…”

He closed the gap between them and rubbed the soft flesh of her lower lip with his. Desire shot through him. God, she felt good. She felt amazing. “Kissing is absolutely included.”

“I don’t have to accept your terms, my lord,” she said against his lips. “My company is much in demand, aged to perfection as it is.”

He breathed deeply of the morning freshness of her skin, the light lavender scent of her hair. “Then I will become something of a connoisseur.”

Her head turned. The thin skin of her neck pulled against her pulse.
Thump, thump, thump.
She was affected. At least as much as he.

Who was he fooling? He was raging mad for her. He grasped her head and pulled her lips to his, kissing her as hungrily as he had in his dreams. She returned his passion. Something crashed to the floor as he pushed her harder against the wall. She was Miss Smythe, his improper neighbor. Celeste, the toast of the demimonde. Miss Gray, an angel who lived in a tastefully decorated bordello.

She was the woman who had scorned him and forced him to lengths of which he would never have believed himself capable.
 

Summoning every fiber of strength in him, he pushed himself from her. His lips brushed the soft curve of her ear as he turned. “I
will
claim what’s mine.”

Chapter Twenty

What had she just done? Celeste’s heart thundered in her chest as she watched him climb into his carriage. He’d left through the
front
door. And she’d
allowed
him to. They might as well print it in the gossip columns. They had an arrangement. Such a juicy morsel would be all over London before she could even finish her toilette.

And what recklessness it was. How did the gentle teasing and solid strength of him make her think a few weeks or months or nights were worth certain heartache? How bold she’d sounded, announcing theirs would be a business arrangement! Even if she were not half in love with him already, she couldn’t keep that promise. Her life had been so empty. Being with someone who made her
feel
was a drug. She was a helpless addict when it came to Ash.

She drew the rich red curtain of the front window back, hovering just out of sight. The street below was beginning its daily bustle. How had things become complicated in such a short amount of time? She’d gone to Devon in search of a different life. Somehow, she was back where she’d started. Mistress to a man who despised and desired her at the same time. A man who would never settle for someone like her, no matter how desperately he wished to believe it.

She wanted to be with Ash. Just not like this.

But the aching crawl of the minute hand around the mantel clock weakened her resolve. It depressed her, really, how badly she wished to see him again. She could hardly think of anything else. When the time came for her to dress for the day, she hesitated. Then, with a simple order, her schedule was cleared. A late morning breakfast, two lectures and an opera, all easily wiped with a word from her lips. She was too distracted to attend.

In the afternoon she drew on her robe and watched the street for more hours than she cared to admit. A glimpse of him was all she desired, however cork-brained that made her.

He’d said he would come.
Would he? Or would he come to his senses, as she ought to do?

Finally, a note arrived. On fine card stock, with an economy of words, he laid out his request:

Midnight. Dessert and entertainment. Provided by you.

Rising, she pressed the card to her breast. It was madness, yes, but she couldn’t seem to care.

Having a boiler woman for a lady’s maid had never hampered her toilette. Hildegard collected every lace-edged gown and high-necked bodice Celeste owned and hefted them into the bedchamber. “This one is too much,” the maid declared, laying a slinky red evening gown to the side. “The color is fine but the décolletage leaves nothing to the imagination.”

Celeste nodded, too nervous to speak. Hildegard tossed another revealing gown across the bed and lifted a green silk with a high waist and long sleeves. “I’ve always liked this one on you. Just enough bosom to pique interest without giving away what you work so hard to put a price on.”

“Thank you,” Celeste replied. “I’ll see if it still fits.”

The gown wasn’t in the first stare of fashion, but Ash was too rustic to notice. It slung provocatively over her hips. All she required was a little help with her unruly curls and she was ready.

“There hasn’t been one like him before,” her stocky maid commented around a mouthful of hairpins. “You’re not a child anymore, but I feel like I’m the closest thing you’ve got to a ma and someone has to caution you.”

Celeste was too jumbled with nerves to reprimand her maid’s familiarity. “I’m not sure I ever was a child.”

“Pish. In some ways you’re still a little girl looking for affection.”

The comment struck Celeste as depressingly accurate. She felt her age—she felt a hundred years older than her age—yet she craved love with the insatiable hunger of a child.

Several heartbeats passed in which she debated rebuking or indulging Hildegard. A part of her itched to deny the accusation. But after fifteen faithful years of service, perhaps Hildegard
was
the authority on Celeste Gray. No other person had been with her through more.

She regarded her plump-armed champion in the mirror. Hildegard and Gordo depended on the decisions she made. They would follow her anywhere. Devon. London. Heartbreak.

Celeste took a breath, accepting she was long overdue for a look at herself. “How so?”

“Well,” Hildegard relaxed into the unusual intimacy of the moment, “when I look at you, I see the scared little girl you must have been after your ma died. You had no income, you couldn’t sew, you could barely a boil a carrot. She left you alone while she ran off on holiday with a lover. What were you to do when she never came back?”

Celeste went rigid. “I did the best I could.”

Hildegard began separating strands of Celeste’s hair into sections. Her strokes were soothing, her tone brisk. “Of course you did. You did the only thing you could. You set up in your ma’s flat and took up with a man and made the best of it. Not many girls could have done as well for themselves. But there was a cost.” Hildegard wrapped a section of hair around the curling tongs. “Eighteen years later, it’s still you alone.”

Celeste concentrated on sitting motionless under the hot tongs. Hildegard’s assessment made her want to squirm. “I have friends,” she said, a touch too defensively.

“You are well-known.”

“I give and receive affection all the time.”

Hildegard snorted. “You touch other people and they touch you.” She freed another tendril of Celeste’s hair and wrapped it around the hot tongs. “A hug…the warmth of a man on a cold night…when he squeezes your hand just to remind you he loves you… That’s affection.”

Celeste did want that. But Hildegard was wrong. That type of fondness was the exception, not the rule.

Celeste knew where this path ended, for she’d seen dozens of men walk away. But that was her lot in life, the hand she was dealt. She’d learned to play her cards close and stay ahead as long as possible. It was all she
could do now, for the game was already underway.

* * *

He arrived sharply at midnight, though there was no reason to be punctual. Celeste couldn’t remember a time she’d ever been as nervous waiting for a lover.

Gordo showed him into the drawing room, conferring upon him all the respect demanded of a man of his rank and sobriety, but also demonstrating a boyish sort of expectation. No doubt he and Hildegard had been talking belowstairs.

Maybe Celeste wasn’t quite as alone as she’d always thought.