Page 85 of The Seduction of an English Scoundrel

“Perhaps you ought to go back to your room.”

“This is my room,” he reminded her good-humoredly. “They are all my rooms.”

“I meant—listen, Grayson, despite all appearances to the contrary, I am not mistress material. We cannot indefinitely behave like pagans.”

He knew that, of course. She had marriage and motherhood etched into every bone of her delightful body. And her distress roused a great deal of guilt inside him. But he couldn’t pardon her quite so easily. Let him finish the game before he granted mercy.

He pretended to give the matter thought. “Well, we certainly cannot let you become a spinster.”

She sat up slowly, the afterglow of their lovemaking apparently fading in the face of reality’s complications. “I cannot become a courtesan either.”

“Lie back down, Jane,” he soothed. “You have a few things left to learn before you attain that status.”

“There is no alternative, Grayson. We have to get married.”

“Married?” he said, lifting his hand to his heart in mock horror. “Heavens above, somebody put a gun to my mouth.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Continue in this manner, and it is not outside the realm of possibility.”

“You know how I feel about the parson’s mousetrap.” He smiled slowly. “Even if you are a delicious little mouse.”

She drew a deep breath. “I am a decent woman, or at least I was, you overbearing ox. It was you who presented yourself as respectable to my parents.”

“Are you proposing to me, Jane?” he asked in amusement.

“I’m afraid I am,” she said, sounding none too pleased at the admission.

He released a rueful sigh. “I thought we had come to a suitable arrangement.”

“Being a harlot does not suit me,” she said with an indignant scowl.

“No? I think you have a natural talent for it, though.”

“Where is that gun you mentioned?”

He traced his fingertip across her belly, watching her muscles quiver in response. “Marriage? Let me think about this for a day or two. Perhaps I can be persuaded. In the meantime, darling, turn onto your stomach.”

“On my—” She swallowed a gasp. “What are you going to do?”

“There’s a looking glass to your left if you’d like to watch,” he said in a silken voice. “Otherwise, I suggest you simply close your eyes to enjoy the experience.”

He spent the entire night awakening her body. He took no precautions to prevent a pregnancy, for the first time in his life. He was completely ready to claim the children she would give him, to protect her and those she cherished. Friend, mistress, wife. He would seduce his lovely schemer all the way to the altar. He would love her for the rest of his life.

Chapter 20

Jane lifted the sinewy male arm that imprisoned her midriff like an anchor and let it drop onto the bed. The owner, a great naked, blond beast who had ravished her, gave a grunt of contentment and rolled onto his side. This reaction afforded her an eye-popping view of the long torso that tapered into lean buttocks, then iron-hard thighs. As she admired the sight, he wrapped his arm around the bolster she had vainly attempted to shove between them throughout the night.

Not, she reflected wryly, that such an insubstantial barrier had deterred him one bit. He had not made poetic love to her. He had gleefully debauched her, and she, just as gleefully, had encouraged him to new heights of decadence.

She stared in wonder at the devastation of the bedchamber. It had been a night to remember. Chairs overturned, champagne glasses on the floor, her chemise hanging like an emblem of surrender from the bedpost.

Surrender? Good heavens, she had been the one on the attack toward the end, making the most of her glorious fall from grace. Had she really let him bind her to the bed with her stockings? And those little love bites all over their bodies . . .

How had this happened? She had been such a decent young lady until recently, so well behaved, so virtuous. Yes, rebellion had always simmered under the surface, but the acts in which she and Sedgecroft had participated were unspeakably naughty by any standards. Loving him had turned her entire world upside down. The thought he might resist returning her affection was unbearable.

A hesitant footfall sounded outside the door. A soft knock followed, and she held her breath as the knob did not turn. That could only be Simon, she thought, aghast, sliding off the bed where her partner in decadence slumbered on.

She dressed in her robin’s-egg blue muslin traveling gown and fished her half boots from the tangle of bedding on the floor. At the door she stopped to stare back with reproach at the reflection in the looking glass of the ruined woman she had become. Obviously she had made a muddle of her life and needed pots of tea and days of solitude to think it through.