A Most Demanding Mistress (Fashionably Impure Book 2) (8 page)

She held her breath, not knowing what he
would do.

He laid his head on her breast then fitted
himself close to her body, hugging his around her waist.

A myriad of confusing feelings whirled
within her. She longed to let her breath go in a sigh and to surrender to him
emotionally just as thoroughly as she had sexually.

She was afraid to risk it.

He closed his eyes.

She continued holding herself stiffly, not
knowing what to do or how to feel.

Adrian listened to the sound of Miranda’s
breathing become more regular. Deeper. Her body relaxed against his.

Finally.

Holding herself rigid in his arms, that
outward, physical sign of her inner resistance hurt him. He couldn’t deny that.

Yet, he also couldn’t deny it was all his
fault.

He lifted his head and propped himself on
one elbow and then he smoothed a hand over her hair, lingering to enjoy the
silken texture of the dark auburn tresses.

He had lost control with her.

A total loss of control.

That he had lost control over his emotions
at all, with anyone, under any circumstances, that alone would have deeply
disturbed him.

But to have done so with
her,
due to
the surge of jealous possessiveness, well, that was untenable.

It proved that Adrian was no better than his
father

Or any number of other male ancestors who
had either ruined their own lives, or the lives of the people who loved and
depended on them most, over their need to seek out, to dominate and to own
beautiful women.

He had reminded her of Winterton.

Winterton!

No one need to tell Adrian how much of her
trust he might have lost. How much damage he might have done to the bond growing
between them.

He would have to work very hard to regain
that.

He would also have to keep a tight rein over
himself.

Miranda started awake to the sound of
Adrian’s voice.

A low, deep rumble.

She realized he was still half-asleep,
speaking her name.

His arm tightened about her.

“I dreamed that you had left,” he said, his
voice somewhat hoarse.

The raw anguish in his voice struck her in
her heart. His pain resounded within her. She felt her face contort with the
sudden emotion.

“It would have been my own fault if you
had,” he said, gently. “No less than I would have deserved.”

He lifted his head and a soft sound of loss
escaped her. She opened her eyes. His were dark and heavy lidded with hunger.
He traced a finger in the hollow of her collarbone and then moved it down the
line of tiny pearl buttons on her heavy flannel gown. “Only a woman’s nimble
fingers could work these diminutive buttons. A man would have to tear them
open.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “Perhaps I felt
a need to be protected.”

“Against me?” He had begun to undo the
buttons, belying his earlier statement.

“Maybe against all men.”

“A wise precaution. You have beautiful
breasts. The most perfectly beautiful I have ever seen.”

She watched as he deftly worked the row of
buttons open. “They say you prefer plain women.”

He froze with his hand resting on the valley
between her breasts, underneath the now opened nightgown. He looked up at her.
“I prefer you.”

She felt her smile widen. “I thought perhaps
that is why you despised me.”

“You were colder than December to me. It
made me wonder what it took to thaw your icy heart.”

She laughed softly. “I love when you tell me
that I am beautiful. It makes me melt.”

“I don’t need to tell you, you know it
already. Too well.” He moved his hand over the swell of her breast.

“Tell me anyway, my lord.” She caught her
breath as his fingertips brushed her nipple.

Even as sparks of delight followed his
touch, she sensed a sudden tension in him. “My lord?” she asked.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever
seen.” He continued caressing her. “But that returns us to our original topic.
Your role as courtesan. Your flirtatious behavior, your cosmetics, your sparkly
bodices…” He laughed softly. “As though you need to do anything to draw
attention to these gorgeous breasts.”

He gave her a squeeze and the resultant
pleasure made her shudder.

“But you really shouldn’t gild the lily so
much.”

She bristled. He wanted her to change,
already. He wanted her to become plain, ordinary when all her security and all the
security she could offer Mama relied on her being always beautiful, always
elegant, something out of the ordinary.

Didn’t he realize that no woman could really
be so out of the ordinary? Such an image required the very artifice that he
hated. Once she lost that air of fantasy that she and her aunt had worked so
hard to create, it would likely be lost forever.

“I can’t do what you’re asking,” she said.
“I just can’t take the risk yet.”

“Ah, the risk of trusting me.” Beneath his
firm tone, how hurt he sounded! He withdrew his hand from her breast. “At least
the risk of trusting me fully.”

“Why can’t we simply
be
for now? Why
can’t we just be lovers and let matters develop as they will?”

“Because your physical safety is also at
risk.”

The sudden surge of overt emotion in his
tone made her catch her breath.

“At my hunting box, when those boys drugged
your wine, I saw the clear evidence of how dangerous your…
profession
is
to you.”

“That’s my concern. My risk—”

He sat up and leaned over her, the skin
pulled tight over his cheekbones, his jaw held rigidly. “Not any longer.”

At his abrupt fierceness, she held her
breath, her heart pounding wildly. Trepidation? Yes, surely.

Arousal?

Yes, that too.

“I told you that you are mine now.” He
caressed her cheek. “You are so precious to me. Do you think I shall ever be
careless with you?”

She had to swallow against the tightening in
her throat. “I can take care of myself… I always have.”

“No, I am not sure that you really can, my
love.” He brushed his thumb over her lower lip. “I have seen too much evidence
of your soft heart, your beautiful soft heart. You will sacrifice yourself
completely for your Mama. You will throw caution to the wind to bolster the
esteem of others.” The barest grin touched his mouth. “You let me get away with
too much arrogance, too much insensitivity. You ought not have opened your door
to me last night. You ought to have thrown me out on my arse. Instead, you let
me ravish you.”

Uncomfortable at being so closely
scrutinized, she laughed, softly. “Just who ravished who last night?” She
trailed her fingers down his bare chest and stomach, slowing down in her
enjoyment of his hard, rippling muscles. “Are you sure you know the answer?”

As she swooped, dangerously low, he captured
her hand, holding her still by the wrist. “We must discuss this. I am your
protector now. It is my place to set limits for you if I feel your safety is in
danger.”

Miranda’s felt herself melting inside at his
protectiveness. No man had ever cared to protect her the way that Adrian did.

At times, she had thrilled to his sense of
protectiveness but she wasn’t sure what she thought about any sense of
protectiveness being a justification for dictating her behavior, her attire.
Even if she might wear cosmetics.

But was she allowing those soft feelings,
her own craving for a man’s more tender feelings and care to blind her to his
true nature?

Could it be that he was simply finding some
way to excuse his possessiveness?

“You are no longer simply a courtesan. I am
not merely some random gentleman paying for your services. You are my mistress
and also my love.” His voice became softer on the last two words and he
released her wrists.

She no longer felt like seducing him.

She felt a little lost. Confused by the
events of the past evening. The past few days.

Yes, she was in love with him. At times, he
seemed the answer to all the girlish dreams she had held, secretly, never even
admitting them to herself.

However, love was turning out to be far more
complicated than she wanted it to be.

What happened to those lovely dreams?

Adrian watched Miranda, noting her deepening
frown. Once again, he had allowed his previous experience with courtesans to
color his perception of Miranda’s behavior. He would never have thought that a
flirtatious gesture would actually be an act of kindness to a shy and unsure
younger person.

Just as he had told her, her heart was far
too soft and forgiving.

How ironic that he had once seen her as cold
and haughty. Uncaring. He had once believed that she had driven his Carrville
to his early death through unceasing demands for money and support. Perhaps
even using sexual congress to weaken him. Adrian had thought that she had
wheedled Carrville to sign a will that was favorable to her and would be well
rid of him.

Now Adrian knew all of that had been untrue.
Miranda had grieved her protector for he had been a lover who was a friend, but
not a beloved lover.

She had bent her head down, curling on her
side, her auburn hair falling over her face.

He smoothed the tangled tresses back. “The
weeks we spent apart were a torment. I will not risk losing you. I will not see
you put your own safety at risk.”

“Because I am an elegant plaything?”

His caressing hand froze, so deeply did her
words cut into him.

As the full meaning of her words settled in,
the pain seemed to take away his ability to take a full breath.

You terrified me.

You reminded me of Winterton.

He understood, better than he had before,
how deeply he had hurt her the evening before.

He had to work very hard to make her forget.
To make her feel secure with him and to believe him when he said that he would
never, ever abandon her.

And yet, the strength of his need to possess
her still disturbed him. Did he love her, the woman inside enough to respect
her need for autonomy?

Or would he prove no better than the other
men of his family, a man who wanted to possess beautiful women and would treat
them no better than an expensive doll?

A feeling of profound despair wrenched
through his gut.

No, God, no.

He was not like his father.

He grit his teeth.

He was not!

He loved Miranda, body
and
soul.

Despite the edgy energy coursing through his
veins, he forced himself to lie beside her. But he couldn’t close his eyes.
Instead, he watched her as sleep overtook her.

Moonlight from the partiality opened
curtains made her pale skin glow. He couldn’t take his eyes from the perfection
of her profile.

She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever
seen. That was no lie told to flatter her. He couldn’t deny the joy that filled
him to know that she was
his
.

But was it joy to possess her love?

Or joy to possess her loveliness?

Did he doubt himself because she still
didn’t trust him? Was her lack of trust a sign that she didn’t really love him?

Or was it as he had determined from the start
tonight, that he had given her due cause not to trust him?

The conflicting thoughts went round and
round in his mind, keeping him from sleep.

Chapter Six

At a clanging sound, Miranda opened her eyes
and came to herself. Dawn’s pale light gave the chamber a soft glow.

She glanced around and saw a maid she had
seen in Danvers’ house building up the fire. Intent on her work, the girl did
not glance Miranda’s way.

Danvers came into the chamber. His hair was
damp, obviously recently combed into place and he looked clean-shaven. He wore
a crisp white shirt with a pale blue vest and beige breeches and he bore a
tray.

He placed the tray on the bedside table. The
scent of steaming tea tantalized her. Yes, she could certainly use a nice, hot
cup right now.

She could feel his eyes on her like a
physical touch. But she stared at the coverlet, with her last words from the
night before echoing in her mind.

Because I am an elegant plaything?

What a horrid thing to say!

She recalled the stricken expression that
had crossed his face after she had said it. She knew him well enough to know
he’d never show that kind of weakness to anyone else.

That kind of hurt.

She had hurt him.

What was the matter with her?

She would usually never allow anyone to know
her direct thoughts. It was more her way to keep her tongue still and to wait
to see what others did. Or did not do.

But with Adrian, she just couldn’t bear any
uncertainty.

She had wanted to see what he would do or
say.

Well, she had seen, hadn’t she?

Now she didn’t know what to say or do to
make the situation better.

“You need to eat,” he said.

She sat in the bed, all too aware of him,
his strong yet elegant body moving behind her. The scent of his cologne wafted
down to her as he fluffed the pillows and made a backrest for her.

Beneath the cologne, she detected a strong
scent of brandy. So, he’d been drinking, heavily, again.

Because of her.

The door clicked softly closed as the maid
left them.

Full of unease and regret, she watched him pour
her a cup of tea and add two lumps of sugar. She accepted it with hoarsely
whispered thanks. And then he watched her while she sipped it.

The sun continued to brighten the chamber,
making the blue lights in his still slightly damp black hair glisten. He held a
teacup himself but did not drink. His gaze was full of tenderness. Openness.

“We fell in love very quickly,” he said.

She tipped her cup and drank deeper,
attempting to hide. It was one thing to discuss love in the heat of the moment.
It was an entirely different thing to speak of it so cold bloodily.

Especially after a night like the one just
past.

She had faced her deepest fears in loving a
nobleman and also had her own failings lain open where she couldn’t deny them.
She could hate a man for that. Yet, there was no denying that she loved Adrian.

Madly.

Deeply.

“I did not expect to ever fall in love like
this,” he continued.

“Like this?” she asked, her throat still
stinging from the long gulp of slightly-too-hot tea, her voice still shaky with
her conflicting emotions.

He made a gesture with his palm up. “So
passionately, so mindlessly.” He smiled, just a little. “So recklessly.”

Recklessly.

Memories of herself, crying and railing her
anger and fear at him the night before played with in her mind, vivid and
disturbing. Her heart pounded jarringly in response.

Last night. God. No wonder he had sought
solace in brandy.

With a trembling hand, she lowered her cup.
“We do bring out a reckless side in each other.”

“We do indeed.” He laughed softly and reached
out to caress her hand with his fingertips. “A sweet, yet bitter, recklessness.
I never expected love would be so piquant.” He paused again. “At least not for
me.”

She had known that love could be this way.
But she had thought herself too cold, incapable of loving any man. She had
thought that Winterton had ruined her in that way. But her tongue had not been
oiled by strong drink, as Adrian’s so obviously had been, and she found it hard
to speak deeply about such a topic.

Or did it have something to do with him
being older, having fathered sons and lost a wife? Maybe he was more
comfortable with his emotions because he had not been able to run and hide from
them as she had.

The thought made her reconsider herself in
comparison with Adrian, but before she could come to any deeper conclusions, he
began speaking again.

“I married Jane knowing she was only my
friend. But I did expect us to learn to love each other.” He paused for a
moment, his smile becoming more self-mocking. “A rational, sane love.”

Something in that self-recriminating glance
made her put her teacup down on the tray. She immediately leaned closer to him
and reached to touch his hand.

He didn’t seem to notice, his eyes now
distant.

“Despite all my expectations, our early
marriage was…” He paused to take a deep breath. “Jane and I remained friends
but that bond became progressively strained. She found the marriage bed…
difficult.” A flash of pain crossed his face. “She said it was too awkward to
bed with a friend. Once she had given me my two sons, she changed the lock on
her bedchamber door and she bade me to find my pleasures where I would.” His
look turned grim, hard. “Elsewhere.”

“Oh Adrian!” The lump forming in her throat
made her voice a little hoarse and she squeezed his hand more firmly. Love and
sympathy for him filled her and made tears prick at her eyes.

She could feel his pain, his rejection as
clearly as though they were her own.

Weakness?

Maybe.

She couldn’t help it. She was too attuned to
his every mood.

“Jane and I failed to make a connection as
lovers because we had been friends too long.” He paused for a moment. “I don’t
want you and me to make the opposite mistake. You don’t trust me because we
have fallen in love so quickly. We became lovers before we knew each other as
friends. I don’t want to fail with you as I did with my wife.”

She studied his darkly handsome, if rather
brooding visage, and her eyes caressed his elegant, leanly muscled body,
displayed to such perfection in his well-tailored clothes. Painful longing
swept through her. Longing to feel his touch, to taste his kiss, to hear his
soft, somewhat poetic words in her ears…

How could the late Lady Danvers have
possibly found the self-restraint to have barred this man gorgeous, tender,
maddening man from her bed?

Miranda was consumed by a wave of indignant
anger for her lover.

She had never been fond of Lady Danvers,
seeing her as a feckless girl who had driven Carrville to his wits end with
worry and angst too often. Now Miranda saw her as increasingly too
self-consumed to care about the people around her.

Lady Danvers had died, due to careless
actions and left her father suffering under a crippling weight of guilt and
grief.

Previous to becoming intimate with Adrian,
Miranda had always believed him to be too cold and arrogant to have felt much
over his wife’s death. Now she saw that Lady Danvers had left Adrian just as
wounded and self-blaming as Carrville had been. What a pity that Jane
Sutherland’s tragic, violent demise had put a wedge between the two men. They
might have offered each other comfort. That comfort might have prevented
Carrville’s unexpected death.

Could Miranda herself have been able to do
something to bring the estranged men together?

She wouldn’t have dared overstep her bounds.

But had she put her fear of societal
standards above her fondness for Carrville? What was a mistress’ duty to a
protector’s emotional well-being?

What did one friend owe another?

A wave of regret went twisting through her
stomach.

Why did she recriminate herself like this?

The past was done. Nothing could change it.
All that remained was the here and now. She considered Adrian’s troubled
expression.

“What makes you think the failure is yours?”
she said.

“I failed to make her trust me as a lover. I
failed to connect with her in that way. I cannot deny the role that failure had
in ultimately leading to her death.” He took her hand into both of his.

How warm and safe it made her feel to be
held by him like that. Miranda’s heart seemed to expand. Previously, she would
never have dared to speak disrespectfully to a man of his own deceased wife.
Especially not a nobleman and one who was paying her bills. But she couldn’t
hold back. “Oh Adrian, you weren’t to blame. She was ever attracted to
blackguards. Carrville himself often worried about her taste in lovers.”

She held her breath, with her heart pounding
in her ears. She loved him so much. She felt his pain as though it were her
own. She wanted to heal all his hurts. That desire to offer him solace and to
help him gain new perspective on old wounds made her bold and able to voice
truths she never could in the past.

What would his reaction be to this bit of
truth regarding Jane Sutherland and her self-centered fecklessness? He gave a
lengthy sigh as he rubbed the back of his neck. “If I had been able to give her
what she needed, she would never have…” He caught himself, as though voicing
the actual words were too painful. “She would never have gone outside our
marriage.”

“Perhaps, she selected you, knowing that Carrville
would never approve of her lover but also knowing that you would eventually
give her the freedom she needed?”

He froze and then shot her a fierce look.
Blue fire reflected by the increasing blaze of sunlight in the chamber. “God, I
should not like to think Jane was capable of that type of scheming.”

He assumed the arrogant expression she knew
well.

The warmth that Miranda had been feeling
ebbed a bit. “Why, because she was noble born?”

His hand went cold against hers.

Or had she only imagined that?

Now he looked hard, closed off from her.

Ah! She had suspected as much. Miranda’s own
heart hardened as she slipped instinctively into a self-protective mode. “Or
was it because she was plain?”

“I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Don’t insult my intelligence.” Anger
pounded into her, making it more difficult to collect her thoughts, to put
thoughts into words. “I know you previously despised me and all courtesans. It
is no secret. Just as it was no secret that you have previously selected plain
women for your lovers. Everyone says so.”

He turned away from her, partly. But he did
not get up from the bed. Instead, he took the tray from the bedside table and
put it in front of her.

The scent of cold ham and soft French
cheeses wafted up to her, making her a little nauseated.

“You should eat,” he said tersely.

She couldn’t imagine taking even a bite and
she sought escape again in her teacup, drinking deeply.

He remained sitting there, so close to her
yet now so distant. He drummed his fingers on his thigh. “I didn’t consider
Jane plain. At least, she wasn’t when she was laughing and smiling. Her eyes
and the curve of her mouth were beautiful then. And she was always so full of
mirth.”

Aye, Jane Sutherland was always full of
mirth. Not much else.

The thought came unbidden, bitter as acid.
Miranda took another deep drink of the sweetened tea. But she couldn’t wash
down the sudden rancor. “No one can deny that her sister is as plain as an
unvarnished wooden plank.”

The caustically spoken words stunned her
when she heard them. Had she really said that aloud? Maybe she had only thought
it.

The widening of his eyes told her that yes,
she had indeed spoken.

God. She couldn’t seem to stop doing these
thoughtless… and cruel?—yes, cruel things.

Why?

Because she had envied Dorothy Chadwick,
Adrian’s sister-in-law, her long-term and clandestine sexual liaison with
Adrian.

Miranda couldn’t call it an
affaire
,
even in her own mind. That was too painful.

“Christ, Miranda.” Adrian’s voice rang with
shock.

Miranda pushed the tray away and arose from
the bed. She walked calmly to her wardrobe. But inside, she was cringing at her
own wickedness.

But she hated Dorothy Chadwick with a
jealousy that bitter and green as bile. Did she like that side of herself?

No, not particularly.

Yet, she couldn’t help it.

She yanked the wardrobe door open and
whipped her hand across the dresses hanging there. She laid her hand on one
dove gray wool one, something left over from the weeks after Carrville’s death.
She pulled it from the rack and then faced him, feeling her cheeks burning with
the emotions snapping within her.