The Perfect Mistress (7 page)

impossible to counterfeit. On impulse, he raised her hand to his face again and breathed in, confirming his earlier perceptions. The scent was fainter, but still there. Biscuits.

"You smell wonderful." His voice was like a purr as he began an olfactory exploration of her, skimming her wrist and following a trail of scents up her arm and across her shoulder, while murmuring descriptions of what he encountered. "There is a veritable cloud of roses about you…
ummm
… a clovelike scent to your neck… the hint of lemon rinse in your hair…"

Gabrielle watched his romantic overtures with genuine horror. Of all the dangers she had faced this night, this was the worst. Pierce St. James was determined to seduce her, and a seduction would ruin her chances of making a marriage forever. Talk—maybe if she could get him to
talk
—

"The earl of Sand—something?" she said, pushing on his chest and managing to put an inch or two between them. "Tell me again, my lord…

earl of what?"

"Sandbourne," he said, running his hand down her cheek and bending his head to nuzzle and kiss the palm of her hand. "Lucky girl. A prime minister and an earl in the same night," he murmured, losing himself to passion, by degrees.

"A real earl? I mean, with patents and robes and a seat in the House of Lords?" she demanded, holding her breath until he murmured something in the affirmative. 'Well, that certainly must keep you busy. I mean, what with fine houses and holdings and estates—you do have them, don't you?"

"I do," he said raising his head to savor the eagerness of her. Her avid interest in his rank and wealth brought a faint curl of triumph to his kiss-reddened lips. "All of the standard luxuries… estates, houses, carriages, bank accounts, family jewels…"

"How lovely," she said, as calmly as she could with her heart thudding wildly. "And I imagine you must travel a great deal—winter in the south of France, that sort of thing."

"Occasionally," he murmured, unbuttoning her cuff and working her sleeve up her arm with kisses and nuzzles. "I don't like to be away when Parliament is in session."

"Or away from your wife and children, I suppose."

"I have no wife or children," he murmured, pursuing her as she scooted to the edge of the chair and sat teetering on the brink of falling.

"That's a pity," she said, meaning every word of it. She had hoped that the mention of a virtuous wife and innocent children might divert him from his designs on her. "Still, I'm sure you have plenty of time for them. After all, you are probably no more than… what… thirty-five?"

"Thirty. Such delicate skin…" With each adoring murmur along her skin, he leaned progressively closer, until he was pressed intimately along her side; shoulder, waist, and hip. "Shaded like peaches and sweet cream." One of his arms slid around her waist, holding her in place on the chair, while the other hand began to stroke her cheek and feather fingertips down the bridge of her nose and across her lips. "You feel like fresh rose petals in dew… so cool and silky…"

"Please, your lordship—no—" She shoved harder against him, nearing full panic as her talking strategy went up in flames. Inexplicably, Rosalind's voice filled her head, recounting an axiom from her Rules of Romance.
A
true lover appreciates a woman with all the senses… sight, hearing, touch,
smell, and taste
. She had the half-rational thought that his lordship must have studied in the same amorous school as her mother. He was sniffing, staring, stroking, and whispering… any second now she expected to be nibbled as well.

By her mother's standards, the earl was a prime specimen of the accomplished and desirable lover… handsome, smooth, masterful. In fact, she thought with growing despair, her mother would probably be delirious with joy if she could see what was happening to her at this very moment!

She jerked her head as he aimed his mouth for hers, and his lips grazed her jaw instead, then dropped a string of light kisses around her throat.

When she felt the rasp of his tongue and telltale tug of her skin, she cringed.

Was this what she had to look forward to? A lifetime of being continually sniffed, ogled, handled, and nibbled by men with rampaging passions and extravagant pedigrees?

Passions and pedigrees
. She froze. For one breathtaking instant, her present danger intersected her larger dilemma of how to wrest control of her life and future from her mother. And at that critical juncture stood her current abductor. Tall, dark, and undeniably handsome, he fairly oozed worldliness, sophistication, and sexual accomplishment. If anything he said was to be believed, he was a nobleman, a peer of the realm… wealthy and unmarried and thirty years old…

He was
exactly
what her mother wanted for her.

Her thoughts raced wildly as his hands began to roam her waist, rising up her sides, searching the shape of her beneath the damp layers of her clothes.

Then he was sliding to a seat on the chair beside her, and the next instant, she was being lifted and dragged onto his lap.

The heat of his body beneath her bottom and the feel of his hands gliding over her waist and up her back should have generated either panic or outrage in her. But just now, with her limbs aching from cold and tension and her thoughts fastened tenaciously on turning her predicament into an opportunity, she suppressed those alarming sensations. All she could think was that the libidinous earl could be the answer to her prayers.

"Wealthy, handsome, and thirty," she whispered, pushing on his shoulders and managing to put a bit more space between them. "Tell me, your lordship… do you play polo? Are you simply mad about horses and racing?"

"I've a respectable string of ponies." He overcame her resistance and resumed his intimate inventory of her neck and other ear.

"And do you go to the theater often? How is your Shakespeare? I imagine you must have a whole raft of sonnets tucked away inside you." She bit her lip and quelled a massive urge to shiver as his hands slid up her sides.

She thought he mumbled something like: "One or two."

"And what about music, your lordship? You have such a lovely, deep voice… do you sing? Perhaps play a musical instrument?"

She held her breath as he stilled, mid-nibble, and raised his head to look at her. His skin had taken on a ruddy cast and his eyes had a dark, luminous quality that, even to her novice's eye, spoke of dangerously aroused passions. He frowned, and she felt his hands tighten possessively on her waist. The moment of truth had come.

"Polo ponies, Shakespeare, sonnets… now a singing voice?" he said, fighting to recall and make sense of that barrage of questions. "Inquisitive little thing, aren't you?"

"You're perfect." She took a steadying breath. "Wealthy, knowledgeable, accomplished… undoubtedly an expert in all sorts of amorous matters."

"Good of you to notice," he said dryly, mentally fanning the steam from his senses as he focused on her and caught the sense of purpose in her expression. "I wasn't certain you were paying attention."

"Of course, it really would be better if you were married," she hurried on, mentally measuring and evaluating each line and feature of his face, tilting her head this way and that, trying to view him from her worldly mother's perspective.

"It would?" He returned her scrutiny with a hint of incredulity.

"Absolutely. It would demonstrate how settled, stable, and dependable you are. That, and… my mother says that a man who has to bear with a wife probably deserves a mistress."

He gave a short, surprised laugh. "Your mother says that, does she? She sounds like a very interesting woman."

"Men generally seem to think so," she said, squirming gingerly on his hard thighs and wondering what he would do if she bolted from his lap.

"Uncomfortable?" He had noticed her movements. "So am I." Over her protests, he gathered her up in his arms and carried her to the divan.

Dropping her unceremoniously among the pillows, he sank over her and pinned her on her back against the tufted velvet with the weight of his chest.

She barely had time to bring her hands up between them. "Noooo—"

"Come now, Gabrielle…" His voice was low and ragged.

"I don't think this is at all wise, your lordship." Panicking at the determined glint in his eyes and the urgency of his body against hers, she pushed with all her might and turned her face away. "It's only fair to warn you that if you continue in this behavior, you're letting yourself in for a grave disappointment."

"Nothing short of your turning out to be a longshoreman littered with tattoos could disappoint me, sweetheart." He gazed hotly at her ill-concealed breasts. "And from what I can see, that's not bloody likely."

"Trust me, your lordship, a man of your expertise and experience would most certainly be disappointed." She drew a jerky breath and looked up at him, forcing back the waves of terror pounding at the edge of her awareness.

"You may have noticed… I am not very adept at this 'passion' business. My amorous skills are dismal, at best." His smile lost a degree or two of heat.

"Oh, it's not that my mother hasn't tried to instruct me. The problem seems to be that I haven't shown any particular aptitude for the amorous arts.

That… and I have an abysmal lack of interest in the subject."

"What in hell are you talking about?" he demanded.

Whether it was prudent or not, whether she had thought it through fully or not, the time had come to try out the desperate plan that was still half formed in her head.

"It's something of a story, I'm afraid… but, if you will just be patient…

You may recall, I said I was out on the streets tonight because of my mother

—that we argued fiercely." She saw his impatience rising and backed up to start again. "First you should know… my mother is a very beautiful and elegant woman, and for years she has been the mistress of a wealthy nobleman who—"

"Stop!" He raised a hand, glowering. "What the devil does your mother have to do with any of this?"

"She has everything to do with it… and with the proposition I'm about to make you."

"Proposition?"

He stared at the tousled hair spread around her, at the smooth shoulders and ripe breasts barely hidden by her ruined garments, at the wild jumble of feelings visible in her face. She was the most improbable and exasperating female he had encountered in quite some time. She had squirmed, evaded, and resisted him… protested, dissembled, and avoided him… since the first minute he set eyes on her. Now, with him poised on the brink of making mad, passionate love to her, she lay beneath him apologizing for her ineptness as a woman of passion and dragging out a sordid family history by way of explanation! And as if that weren't enough, she announced that now
she
intended to make him a proposition.

It was just too much for his jaded sensibilities to resist. Exotic, rapacious, or even rapturous sex he could have anytime. It wasn't every night he was propositioned by a self-confessed lousy lover… who had a noble father, a yet-to-be-chosen fiancé, a flaming courtesan for a mother… and the air of a cranky debutante. She had to be one of the most entertaining street tarts in London. And, for some unfathomable reason, his fingertips itched when he looked at her.

"What sort of proposition?" he demanded, shifting to one side, on his elbow.

"Well, it's a rather unusual one. And I would have you understand that I am compelled only by desperate circumstances to so desperate an act." She paused to gather her courage and announced with great gravity: "You see, I've turned nineteen and my mother thinks it's time I fell madly and passionately in love."

"She does, does she?" He bit his lip. "I wasn't aware there was such a strict timetable for such things. Rather like British Rail, is it? 'Young girls with names beginning with the letter 'G' depart for amorous bliss promptly at seven twenty-three . .

She gasped and pushed violently with both hands, forcing him up onto his arms above her as she tried to wriggle away.

"Whoa—come back, here!" He caught her.

"I assure you this is no laughing matter," she said hotly. "This afternoon, she introduced me to a detestable French count, and I… well, I didn't react favorably to his manner of wooing, and he left in a terrible huff. My mother was furious. You see, she wants me to take a lover and have a grand and glorious romance, like she did. Something for the ages… a fiery, scintillating affair of the heart and body and soul… a love to be immortalized in sonnets and celebrated in Italian opera."

He studied her with rising incredulity. "And you find that objectionable?"

"Don't you see, she insists that I become a courtesan, like her."

"And what is wrong with that? I would think being the grand romance of a wealthy and generous nobleman might have definite advantages for a young girl."

"For some other 'young girl,' " she retorted stubbornly. "I haven't the slightest wish to be 'the hunger in a man's eyes' or 'the fire in his soul'. "

He stared at her for a long moment, then peeled himself from her tense form and rolled from the divan to stand. Jerking his vest down, he gave her a turbulent look.

"I need a drink."

She closed her eyes and fairly melted into the ruby velvet cushions beneath her. It had worked!