A Most Demanding Mistress (Fashionably Impure Book 2) (2 page)

He motioned to the settee which was nearer to her.

On shaking legs, she moved towards it then collapsed on to
the cushions.

In an instant, he sat beside her.

His gaze intensified, as though he were drinking in the
sight of her. She certainly drank in the sight of him.

Night after night, alone in her bed, she had longed for him.

Longed for him, even after she had rejected his offer so
resolutely…

God. She had longed for him so intensely that her heart had
ached.

It had often ached so badly that often it had seemed to her
that it must be damaged. She had lain awake and wondered if that ailing organ
would simply tire out in her sleep and stop.

Yet come morning, it had always beaten strongly once more,
only to pain her again, in those seemingly endless nocturnal hours when
distractions did not come so easily.

Now she was here with him.

And he had accepted her without recrimination or
reservation.

She hungered for his touch. She wanted only to fling herself
against him, to bid him to take her into his arms and never let her go.

But no, not yet.

First, she had to tell him. This man who put duty to his
loved ones above all else, he had to know her true character, what selfishness
she was capable of. She would never, ever lie to him again about her
weaknesses. He must accept her as she was or not at all.

“
I
have ruined myself,” she said. “I have let my mother down.”

The admission left her weak and she felt her body sag into
the cushions.

He took her hands. His own hands were so strong, so warm.
His strength seemed to pour into her.

Again, just like that terrible morning when the boys had
poisoned her, Adrian gave her a kind of comforting she had never truly known
before.

A man’s kind of comforting.

True, the Duke of Carrville, her first protector, her dearly
departed friend, had been kind and patient with her. Yet, he had taken far more
comfort from her than he had ever given. Sexual comfort. The comfort of a woman
paid to be ever warm and accepting and, above all, cheerful and entertaining,
no matter how she really felt.

And Carrville had never made her feel so utterly safe and
protected as Adrian could, just with his merest touch.

Adrian’s dark brows drew together. “Hush.”

“
No,
I shall never be able to live with myself now. Mama will have a complete
breakdown and it will be all my fault.” Tears blurred her vision. ”Oh God,
Adrian. I did not know.”

She hadn’t known how utterly impossible it would be to
submit to Froster.

She hadn’t realized that she would fail.

He leaned close. The aroma of brandy and his masculine scent
filled her senses. He touched her shoulders.

At his touch, her body went limp, a delicious sort of
relaxation, a type of submission as he pulled her into his embrace.

“
Please,
love, don’t despair.” He caressed her back.

With each stroke, she felt all the tension she had carried
with her these past weeks melt away. Completely.

“
It
is not as bad as you think.”

She wanted to believe him.

Oh, it was too sweetly seductive to believe that he could
make her problems disappear.

She wanted to simply close her eyes and allow him to
shoulder all her burdens. She had never believed that any man ever could.

Ever would…

“
Oh
yes, it is.” She gulped back a sob. “Froster took me back. He even said that he
would never require me to do anything in bed that I didn’t wish to. God, he was
so sincere. So contrite about his former unrelenting stance with me.”

The reality of her fatal mistake settled in.

Without Froster’s offer of protection, without his money,
what hope did she have to solve the problem of Mama and her need for complete
stability in her living situation?

 
Hopelessness
descended on her like a dark, cold cloak over her senses. Her throat tightened.
She swallowed, hard. “But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him touch me. All I could
think of was you and how much I want to be yours.” She made a choking sob. “If
I let him touch me. If I had let him take me, I would never be yours again.”

Her last statement echoed in her ears and a deep, fearful
sorrow filled her. Even to just
think
it might happen— Tears slid down her cheeks.

This was
not
her.

She was a reasonable, rational woman.

She rarely cried and certainly never in front of anyone
else. And usually her tears only came at moments when frustration or rage
overcame her, never over such maudlin things as this.

He cradled her against his shoulder. “Oh my love, oh my
darling.”

Strangely, the sympathetic note in his voice only increased
the flood of her tears. They soaked into the luxuriant velvet that covered his
hard muscles.

“
It
is all over now.” She gulped back a sob. “How could you ever love a woman who
betrayed the mother who needed her? If I could not love her properly and be
what she needed, how could you ever trust in me? You love your sons so much,
you would never betray them. How can you love me now that I have in a way
betrayed my duty to my mother?”

“
Hush,
hush, hush!” The firmness in his voice cut through her rapidly escalating
emotion.

Brought back to her senses, she held herself stiffly, taken
aback at her outburst.

“
It
is all right now.” He sounded so certain.

Again, she wanted to believe…

“
Things
can never be all right again.” She sniffed. As the loud, nasally sound echoed,
she cringed inside.

No elegant courtesan should ever allow herself to be seen in
such a condition. Especially not by a noble gentleman.

He brushed her hair off the side of her face. “Tell me
something, Miranda. Why did you feel so free to reject Froster’s new offer?”

His question completely befuddled her.

She should never, ever have rejected Froster’s offer. It was
the kind of offer the fashionable impures of Mayfair dreamed of.

Adrian cupped her face and looked deeply into her eyes.

Those beautiful blue eyes, they transfixed her. She could
drown in them and never regret it.

“
Tell
me the truth,” he said.

She gaped at him. “I don’t know how I could do that. That’s
what I am saying.”

“
No,
tell yourself the truth.”

She caught her breath. Her heart’s beat began to quicken.

“
Go
on, now,” he said. “Here in this place with me, you can admit it, surely.”

He wanted the truth.

She would never give anyone such leverage over her.

But as she stared into his gorgeous eyes, the light of
tenderness pierced her to the heart. She saw not only the beauty of those eyes
but also by the affection that shone there.

Affection that mirrored her own.

“
I
suppose I couldn’t stop thinking of you.” She heard the anguish in her tone.

The words had been wrung from her.

Now she felt stripped bare.

He stroked her cheek. “And did you think about what I told
you?”

She stared at him, still at a loss over her vulnerability to
him.

“
I
told you to trust in me to protect you against Froster and Winterton.”

“
Yes,
you did.” Oh, how she had struggled with the desire to believe in him and her
natural course to trust in only herself.

“
And
did you think about as the moment of final decision with Froster approached?”

“
How
could I forget it? I have longed to believe that you could protect me against
them.”

“
And
in the end, haven’t you believed it? Haven’t you thrown all your caution aside
and believed in me and rejected Froster?”

The truth of what he said burst upon her, like light in the
darkness.

“
Yes,”
she said, filled with wonder. “It does appear that I did trust in you after
all, doesn’t it?”

A smile curved his sensual lips. His eyes were still alight
with affection. “And why do you sound so surprised, love? I told you I would
fix everything.”

Fix
everything
?

He had fixed everything?

“
How?
How did you fix things?”

He took her hand and cradled it within his own. She looked
at their two hands together. His was so much larger than hers, capable of such
a powerful grip, yet how gently he cradled hers.

She had always prided herself on her strength, not just
emotional strength, but she also worked hard to keep her body strong and fit.
She had been stronger and taller than Mama or Aunt Cassandra. More fit than her
kind, jolly-natured Carrville.

She had feared men with strong, determined natures and
physically powerful bodies.

But Adrian’s muscular build and virility made her aware of
her own femininity, frailness in comparison as never before.

“
I
went to your father.” Adrian’s deep voice cut through her bemusement.

She caught her breath and glanced back at his face.

He had actually seen Winterton?

Though he still held her hand with such infinite gentleness,
his expression was fierce, his blue eyes all the more vivid as they burned with
emotion.

Hatred.

Hatred for Winterton.

Hatred for her sake and for the things the mighty duke had
done to her.

The strangest sensation began to hum within her.

A sensation she had certainly had not felt in years.

But there was a piquant bittersweet note to it. Like a
memory she couldn’t quite recall…

A feeling of being completely safe.

Protected.

But there was something more. Carrville had certainly
protected her and kept her safe. He had done so with his wealth and the
reputation he had earned as a younger man on the dueling field.

But never before had she felt so emotionally supported as
well as protected. Carrville had disapproved of Winterton’s treatment of her
and had warned her sire off.

But he had not displayed the utter of emotional loyalty of
this fierce hatred that shone in Adrian’s eyes.

All the insults and abuse that Winterton had directed at
her, Adrian took personally.

“
I
threatened to reveal certain matters from his past.” Despite his fiery expression,
Adrian spoke so matter-of-fact, as though he didn’t realize that Winterton was
a powerful force. A force that couldn’t be reasoned with—couldn’t be stopped.
As though Adrian were not suffering through all the indignity of genteel
poverty. As though he didn’t work hard at cards and taking chances with the
exchange in desperation to rebuild his family fortune. As though the former
Earl of Danvers had not so carelessly made so many powerful enemies that his
son must also work hard making new connections.

But, of course, Adrian had never been anything if not
arrogant.

Yet, now she perceived that arrogance as unshakable
confidence. It was impossible not to take comfort from such rock-solid
self-assurance.

With her lungs aching, she exhaled, slowly, softly, feeling
as she did, the weight of the world seem to slide off her shoulders.

“
I
told him he must sell the land to me for the same price as he bought it.”

“
You
what?!” The words exploded from her before her brain really had time to process
the full import of his words.

What cheek he had shown Winterton!

The duke must have dearly loved that and laughed in his
face!

She could feel the heat in her cheeks and her breath came so
fast…

Adrian stared back at her with that same unshakable
confidence. “I have purchased the deed to the land, the estate house and your
mother’s cottage. She is secure now. You needn’t ever worry again about where
she—or you for that matter—will live.”

“
Oh
my God!” She pulled away and gaped at him. “Oh my God, I cannot believe it!”

“
I
will sign it over to you, just as soon it can be arranged.”

The deeper implication of what he must have done, how deeply
he had dug into his own pockets, hit her. “But you have spent your sons’
inheritance for me?”

“
I
can earn the money back.”