More than a Mistress/No Man's Mistress (59 page)

“Sweet,” he murmured, moving his mouth from hers, feathering kisses over her closed eyes, her temples, her cheeks, drawing the lobe of one ear between his teeth and rubbing his tongue over the tip, burying his face in the warm, soft hollow between her neck and shoulder. He wrapped both arms even more tightly about her, lifting her until she stood on her toes.

“Yes,” she murmured, her voice low velvet, her cheek rubbing against his hair, the fingers of one hand entwined in it. “Ah, sweet.”

They clung for endless moments.

He was releasing his hold on her at the same moment
as she set her hands against his shoulders and pushed him away, not violently, but firmly.

“Go to bed, Lord Ferdinand,” she said before he could speak. “Alone.” Yet she was not angry. There was something in her voice that spoke of a yearning to match his own. He knew that part of her—a weaker part—wanted him to argue.

“I was not headed down that road,” he said softly. “Seduction was not on my mind. Your maidenhood is perfectly safe with me. But it would be best for us not to meet like this again. I am only a man, when all is said and done.”

She picked up her candlestick. “I will have those pieces swept up in the morning,” she said. “Leave them for now.” She did not look at him again but made her way back to her room, her braid swinging back and forth across her back like a pendulum. She looked infinitely enticing.

He had lost all faith in innocence and purity and fidelity, and even love, long before he left his boyhood behind. He had never been in love or ever enjoyed anything more than a light, bantering sort of friendship with any woman. Women were for sex and children. He did not want children.

But perhaps, after all, Ferdinand thought as the door of her bedchamber closed behind her and the corridor was plunged into darkness again, there were such qualities as goodness and innocence and uncomplicated wholesomeness.

Perhaps there was even love.

And fidelity.

And perhaps he was simply tired, he thought as he located his abandoned clothes in the faint moonlight
and picked them up before making his way toward his bedchamber. It had been a long day, after all, and an extraordinarily busy one.

There was a way for both of them to remain at Pinewood, he thought as he stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him. But he would not pursue that thought tonight. Or tomorrow either, if he was wise.

He was a perfectly contented bachelor.

Ah, sweet
, she had just murmured to him, her voice throaty with passion, her cheek resting softly against his head.

Yes. Sweet, indeed.

He strode purposefully into his dressing room.

V
IOLA GREETED THE ABSENCE
of Lord Ferdinand Dudley from Pinewood the following morning with both relief and dismay. Through a long, almost sleepless night, she had not known how she was going to face him over the breakfast table. On the other hand, his absence was due to the fact that he had ridden out with Mr. Paxton to visit the home farm. It seemed that he was interested in the running of the estate, at least at present. Viola felt his absence on such a mission as a huge intrusion. From the first she had been personally involved in making Pinewood an efficient, prosperous concern. She had done rather well at it, with Mr. Paxton’s help and advice. She had loved it.

There were no great schemes to put into effect today. Only the one this afternoon, which already seemed lame and doomed to failure. Just to accentuate her mood of depression, the lovely warm, sunny spell seemed to have
deserted Somersetshire. There was a light drizzle misting the windows and heavy gray skies to darken the breakfast room.

The trouble was, she did not know for which of two evils she must blame herself more. She had capitulated to the enemy, allowing him to hold her and kiss her. And partly—oh, more than partly—that had happened because he had looked irresistibly attractive in his shirtsleeves, with his evening knee breeches skintight about his long, muscled legs, and because she had felt unbearably lonely and loveless. How could she excuse herself for giving in to desire for such a man? And yet she would prefer to accuse herself of unbridled lust than the other.

For even though she had been half lost in passion while she was in his arms, she really had been
only
half lost. The other half of herself had watched dispassionately as she arched against him, bringing her breasts against his hard chest, her thighs against his, her abdomen against the hard bulk of his erection. She had known the effect she was having on him, the power she had over him. She could have enticed him into bed with almost no effort at all. But though the passionate woman had longed for just that, to lie spread beneath him, brought to pleasure by his clean, youthful virility, the calculating woman had weighed the possibility of enticing him in an entirely different direction—toward love and even marriage.

Viola was deeply ashamed of that half of herself.

“Yes,” she said when the butler stepped closer to her, “you may clear away, Mr. Jarvey. I am not hungry this morning.”

She went to the library and seated herself behind the
desk. She would write home. At least she need not fear interruption for the rest of the morning.

How could she even be tempted to try to make him fall in love with her? She disliked and despised him. Besides, it was impossible. Not to engage his feelings, perhaps, but to marry him. Though it was not that practical consideration that made her feel slightly nauseated, but the moral implications of trying to trick a man into marriage. She picked up the quill pen from the desk, tested the nib, and dipped it in the inkwell.

Beware of a tall, dark, handsome stranger. He can destroy you—if you do not first snare his heart
.

Why had those words of the gypsy fortune-teller chosen to pop into her mind at this particular moment?

She would not do it, she thought with firm resolve. She would not do a single thing deliberately to attract his admiration—or lust. But what if she did not have to do a thing? What if his obvious attraction to her person developed quite freely into something deeper? What if …

No, not even then, she thought, writing, “Dearest Mama, Claire, and Maria,” with a flourish across the top of a blank sheet of paper. She forced her attention onto her letter.

He had
not
been drunk, she thought after writing five words. She had tasted ale on his tongue, it was true, but he had not been drunk. And he had told her that he had not been bent on seducing her, that she was quite safe with him. Worse, she had
believed
him. Still did.

No, she would not be distracted, she thought, writing doggedly on. And she would
not
allow herself to like him.

But later that afternoon she knew there was no danger
of that at all. He was, in fact, quite the most contemptible man she had ever known.

It had been her idea, more than a year before, to begin a sewing circle for the women of the village and neighborhood. There were several places and events to bring the men together, but very few for the women. They had met weekly in the church hall ever since. But Viola had hit upon the happy idea two days ago of inviting the group to meet in Pinewood’s drawing room instead. There could surely be nothing, she had thought then, more calculated to send a town tulip hastening back to London than to discover a few dozen women gathered over their needlework and conversation in the drawing room he considered his property.

“This is really a remarkably good idea of yours, Miss Thornhill,” Mrs. Codaire said as she spread her embroidery threads about her. “Even apart from your main motive, this is a far more convenient meeting place than the church hall. No offense to you, Mrs. Prewitt.”

“None taken, Eleanor,” the vicar’s wife assured her graciously.

“I must say, though,” Mrs. Codaire added, “that his lordship seemed a perfectly amiable gentleman when I called here with Mr. Codaire and the girls yesterday.”

“He insisted upon escorting me home after choir practice last evening,” Miss Prudence Merrywether said breathlessly. “I would have preferred to walk alone, for I could not think of a single intelligent thing to say to a duke’s brother and would have been quite tongue-tied if he had not asked me to explain what soil is best for planting roses in. But it was very obliging of him to consider my safety, even though it is quite absurd to think of
not
being safe in Trellick. And who would think of assaulting
me, anyway, when I am neither young nor beautiful nor rich?”

“It was just his cunning, Prudence,” her sister said firmly, to Viola’s satisfaction. “He wants us all to
like
him. I have no intention of falling for his charms.”

“Quite right too, Miss Merrywether,” Mrs. Claypole said. “No proper gentleman would insist upon living at Pinewood before Miss Thornhill has had a chance to move out. It is quite scandalous, and I blame him entirely. He is not a man of breeding.”

“He flatly refused to allow me to stay here as dear Viola’s chaperon two evenings ago,” Bertha added. “He was remarkably rude.”

“He smiles too much,” Mrs. Warner said. “I noticed that at the village during the fête.”

“Though it
is
a lovely smile,” Miss Prudence said, and blushed.

Miss Merrywether, better organized than most of them, was already hard at work. “If Lord Ferdinand Dudley does not like having us here today, Miss Thornhill,” she said, “and comes in here and orders us to leave, we will inform him that we are here to chaperon our friend and intend to remain for the better part of the afternoon.”

“You always were braver than I, Faith,” Miss Prudence said with a sigh. “But you are right. You are always right. Never fear, Miss Thornhill. If Lord Ferdinand chooses to scold you in our hearing—well, we will scold right back. Oh, dear, if only we dare.”

They all settled to their work after that, and half an hour passed while the room hummed with the usual feminine conversational topics—the weather, everyone’s health, household tips, the newest fashions as displayed
in fashion plates received from London itself, the next assembly.

Then the drawing room door opened and Lord Ferdinand stepped inside. He was looking quite immaculate, Viola saw when she glanced up from the bridal kneeler she had undertaken, dressed in a green superfine coat of expert cut with buff-colored pantaloons and tasseled, highly polished Hessian boots and his usual white linen. His hair had been freshly brushed and looked thick and shiny. He must have been warned, she realized. But instead of hiding away until all the ladies had left, he had gone upstairs to change and had come back down to make his entrance with all the appearance of easy good humor.

“Ah.” He included everyone in his graceful bow. “Good afternoon, ladies. Welcome to Pinewood for those of you I did not meet here yesterday.”

Viola set her work aside and rose to her feet. “The ladies’ sewing circle is meeting here this week,” she explained. “When one is privileged enough to own a manor of this size, you see, one must be prepared to use it for the common good and give up some of one’s privacy.”

He turned his eyes—his
laughing
eyes—on her. “Quite so,” he agreed.

“I believe,” she said pointedly, “the library is free.”

“It is,” he said. “I have just been in there finding a book of which I have heard many good opinions.”

He was holding a book in one hand, Viola noticed for the first time.

“It is called
Pride and Prejudice,
” he said. “Has anyone heard of it?”

“I have,” Mrs. Codaire admitted. “But I have not read it.”

Viola had—more than once. She thought it easily the best book she had ever read. Lord Ferdinand strolled farther into the room and smiled about him with easy charm.

“Shall I read some of it aloud,” he asked, “while you ladies sew? We men are not nearly as diligent or as skilled with our hands, you see, but perhaps we are good for something after all.”

Viola glared indignantly at him. How dare he bring his charm into this female preserve instead of slinking about outside working himself into a temper as any decent man would?

“That would be very kind of you, I am sure, Lord Ferdinand,” Miss Prudence Merrywether said. “Our papa used to read to us, particularly on dark evenings when time might otherwise have hung heavily on our hands. Do you remember, Faith, dear?”

He did not need further encouragement. He seated himself on the only remaining seat, an ottoman almost at Viola’s feet, smiled about him once more as the ladies settled back to their work, opened the book, and began to read:

“ ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ ”

Three or four of the women laughed, and he read on—surely knowing that more than three or four of them were thinking of how that opening statement of the novel applied to him. Not that he had a good fortune in all probability. But he had Pinewood. And she, Viola,
had made it prosperous. She gazed bitterly down at him for a few minutes before resuming her work.

He read well. Not only did he do so clearly and with good pacing and expression, but he also looked up at frequent intervals to reveal his reactions to the narrative with his facial expressions. He was enjoying both the book and his audience, his manner said—and his audience was enjoying
him
. A glance about the room assured Viola of that.

How she hated him!

He stayed after he had read for half an hour to discuss the book with the ladies and to take tea with them and examine and admire their work. By the time the sewing group dispersed for another week, he had all but the strong-minded few veritably eating out of his hand. He even accompanied Viola out onto the terrace to see them all on their way. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still loomed gray and cheerless overhead.

Viola could have cried, and perhaps would have done so except that she was not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had bested her—again.

“What a charming group of ladies,” he said, turning to her when they were alone on the terrace. “I must see to it that they are invited to meet here each week.”