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“I did no such thing! Why, I would not…not if you were the last man on this Godforsaken—”
“You see,” he interrupted, picking up a leather billfold from the bedside and slipping it inside his coat. “I knew you were going to make this more difficult than it had to be.”
She sat up in the bed, still covering her nakedness as best she could with the blanket. “What are you talking about?” she asked, staring at him. “Surely you didn’t save me from Charles only to—”
“Sapphire, I’m not going to rape you.” He frowned. “I’m not the kind of man who needs to rape in order to have a woman.” Again, that smile. “They come to me of their own accord.”
She sucked in a breath, speechless in her rage. “You…you are the most conceited, the most self-centered, most egotistical man I have ever had the misfortune to meet! What are you going to do with me?” she demanded. “What are you talking about? What will I make more difficult than it need be?”
He picked up a small leather case with a wide strap and dropped it over his head and one arm. “I’ve decided to take you with me.”
She tried to push herself back farther with her feet, attempting to put more distance between them, but the simple movement sent pain shooting from her injured ankle up her leg.
“Lie still before you injure yourself more.” He leaned over the bed and began to pull up the corners of the sheet beneath her.
“I demand to know where you’re taking me, Mr. Thixton!”
He continued his task, folding the sheet and blanket around her. “Mr. Thixton again, is it?” He raised an eyebrow. “Seems to me it was Blake not long ago, but then we were more intimately engaged, weren’t we.”
She wanted to reach out and slap that ridiculous smile from his face. “You can’t do this,” she spat. “You can’t…kidnap me.”
“I’m not exactly kidnapping you. After all, you’ve touted your wares over most of London these past few weeks waiting for the highest bid. I’ve made the highest bid and you’re going to accept it.”
“I’m going to do no such thing,” she hissed.
He began to draw the blanket over her shoulder and around her and she lashed out at him, trying to slap away his hands.
“Really, Sapphire,” he muttered. “This is completely unnecessary. Where are you going to go like this, stark naked and barely able to walk this time of morning? Not to Lord Thomas, I’ll guarantee you that. Your offer was that of a virgin’s.”
“I’m still a virgin,” she sputtered as he lifted her into his arms.
?
?A technicality, but who would believe you?”
“Oh!” she cried, her eyes filling with tears of frustration as she tried to reach out, to claw his eyes out or something equally harmful, anything to shut him up. But wrapped tightly in the sheet and blanket, she couldn’t get her legs free, and now he had her arms pinned inside, as well.
“There, there, darling,” he soothed, lifting her from the bed.
In his arms, he drew her against his chest, forcing her to look up at him. “In time you’ll get used to the idea of being my mistress. I think you’ll even come to like it.”
“Let me go!” she shouted, glaring at him. “Let me go or I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Scream? Who would come? I bring women back with me most nights. Some whores, but mostly respectable ladies who prefer to be discreet. No one will come if you scream, my dear. Anyone who might hear you will just assume it’s all part of our early morning love-play.”
Sapphire gritted her teeth.
“Or did you intend to free yourself and run? Wouldn’t that be a pleasant sight, you running stark naked down the middle of the street? Of course, with that bad ankle, you’d have to hobble. And that wouldn’t be quite so lovely a picture, would it? Tarnished lady hobbles through the streets of London. I’m afraid you’d be ruined, my dear, all value of your charms lost to anyone of quality—once they stopped laughing.”
“I’m not going with you, wherever you’re going,” she said quickly, suddenly afraid of what she had gotten herself into. “Last night…it was all a mistake. I…I had too much to drink, I—”
“You keep telling yourself that. Now be quiet while I get you out of here, or I swear by my father’s gin bottle, I’ll set you loose on the street and I’m taking my blankets with me.”
“Oh!” was all Sapphire could manage to say before he covered her face with the blanket, silencing her and leaving her in darkness as he walked out the door.
When Angelique entered the apartments at dawn, Lucia was seated on the couch in her bedclothes, drifting in and out of sleep. At the sound of the door opening, she leaped up. “Sapphire?”
“Aunt Lucia, what are you doing awake at this time of morning?” Angelique, still in her gown but wearing a man’s frock coat over it, her ebony hair down over her shoulders, closed the door behind her. “Are you ill?”
