“No, miss. Until Mr. Easton brought me here and saw that I was properly trained in my duties, I had the misfortune of living in the squalor of St. Giles. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must see that dinner is prepared.”
She watched him walk off, then glanced up the stairs where her ... what was the word for a man who had a mistress? Her lover? Her paramour? Her protector? Whatever he was, he was a mystery. Brute or savior? Or a combination of both?
What would he eventually be to her?
Chapter 8
He’d wanted to dine on the terrace with candles flickering because it provided more shadows than light, and he’d already given away far too much. He didn’t want her studying him, trying to decipher him. He also didn’t want the formal attire that was required in the dining room—although it being his home he could wear, or not wear, whatever he wanted.
He was in a loose white linen shirt. His frock coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth were on the floor of his bedchamber. She was still in the hideous black, but she’d removed all the pins from her hair and secured it with a black ribbon. The golden tresses reached the small of her back. It was a vision that would haunt him tonight when he returned to the club. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent so few hours in a day at his establishment. Odd that he’d not given it any thought until that moment. She had been his focus for much of the day.
He studied her over the rim of his wineglass, imagining her in the clothing that the dressmaker was no doubt already busily sewing. The black would be gone. He could scarcely wait.
She had been inordinately quiet while enjoying the soup, and then the pheasant. Now he caught her fingers shaking when she reached for her wine.
“It won’t be tonight,” he said quietly.
She peered up at him.
“The bedding,” he continued. “I told you it wouldn’t happen until you were comfortable with me.”
He didn’t much like the gratitude that swept over her features. He should just take her and be done with it. Then she wouldn’t be nervous, although she might be a good deal more uncomfortable with him.
“Do you like chocolate?” he asked.
She smiled softly, sweetly. He wondered how long he could keep her without her losing that particular smile.
“Who doesn’t love chocolate?”
He regretted now that he’d given it away. He hoped the old woman had savored it, rather than gobbling it down.
“When did you begin living with the earl?” he asked.
She picked up her wineglass, and he was grateful to see that she held it steady.
“When I was six, after my mother died of the scarlet fever. His wife passed away four years after that. Then it was just he, Geoffrey, and I. For the longest I didn’t understand his having a wife. He was my papa. I thought he was married to my mother. Do you know how to ensure that we don’t have children?”
He nearly choked on his wine. When would he learn not to drink when she was about?
“I shouldn’t like to have children out of wedlock,” she continued. “No matter how much they might be loved, it’s not an easy path for them.”
He almost told her that if they had children, he’d not leave them unprotected as Wortham had, but had he not thought that very afternoon that children were not for him? “I know methods that increase the unlikelihood of children.”
“I thought you might. How long does a mistress generally stay with a gent?”
“Depends on the gent. Depends on the mistress.”
“My father loved my mother. I don’t think he would have ever turned her out.”
“But she left him.”
She jerked her head back. “Not by choice. Death took her.”
“But it must have hurt.”
“Of course it hurt, but that is part of life, is it not?”
Not his life, not if he could help it.
