The Secrets of a Courtesan (9 page)

moaned. When his hands swept up her thighs she allowed her legs to fall open and felt the

coolness of the air against her flesh.

“Leave the stockings,” she managed to say, as she felt his fingers on her garter, and she heard

him laugh. The rough edge to the tone made her heart beat in double time. His caresses rose

higher, stealing over her in a seductive circling motion that made the heat pool deep within her,

until he reached the softest skin of her inner thighs. His fingers grazed her cleft and she cried out,

the sensation blazing through her even as her body grasped for more. His hand was on her hip

and he rolled her over so that she was staring up, dazzled by sensual need, into the hard, hot

glitter of his eyes.

“I want to see you…” His words were low and harsh. “You always were so very beautiful…I

want to touch every part of you…”

Eve
felt
very beautiful, worshipped and adored for the first time in five long years. There was

reverence in the way Rowarth touched her, as though she was exquisitely precious, and awe in

the way that he looked at her.

At last he moved to unfasten his pantaloons and his erection sprang free of the constraint, thick

and hard. He lay beside Eve on the rug and started to kiss her all over again, his hands holding

her still as he ravished her mouth deeply, his fingers tangling in her hair. He dropped his head to

her breasts and skimmed his tongue over the sensitive underside and up to the nipple, licking and

sucking, wrenching a gasp from her lips that was half moan, half plea. She wanted nothing more

than to feel him inside her now and she reached for him, but he held off, making her wait.

“Patience…” There was amusement in his voice. “I want you to really want me…”

Oh, she did. She thought she would die of the wanting.

He trailed kisses across the curve of her stomach and she felt her muscles jump and clench. She

arched, raising her hips, begging now.

“Darling Eve…” His voice was a dark whisper. “You have always been mine.” He moved

between her thighs and hung there poised for what felt like the longest moment of her life. The

emotion strung out between them, fierce and tight and impossibly tense, and then he slid into her,

claiming her, so smooth and deep that she cried out.

Her body shifted to accommodate him as he thrust with strong, slow strokes. Already the

pleasure was building within her, shimmering and tantalizing just out of reach. She wanted more.

She wanted to explode.

“Faster, if you please…” She dug her fingers into his buttocks to pull him even tighter inside and

felt his body jerk in response.

“So polite…” His breathing was ragged. He obliged her by plunging deeper and harder, driving

her higher and higher as she smoothed her hands down his back to encourage him on and bit his

shoulder in an agony of need and ecstasy. She had lost all coherent thought, everything drowning

in pure pleasure and the absolute necessity of fulfillment. And then her body clenched and she

came with a blissful, dazzling intensity. Fireworks exploded in her head, flooding her mind with

light. Her body clasped his in helpless spasm, and she held him and heard him call her name as

he, too, fell into the deepest languor and pleasure. Past, present and future collided in the most

perfect reunion.

In the aftermath she felt him draw her close, tucking her into the curve of his arm as though she

was the most precious thing on earth, her head on his shoulder and the beat of his heart against

hers, and it felt like coming home.

Eve woke to see the light flooding the room and to feel a quick, uncomplicated joy. Rowarth was

lying beside her, his arm about her waist in casual possession, his legs tangled with hers. She

could smell his skin, at once familiar and exciting. Her body quickened again and she shifted,

feeling the ache inside that was the aftermath of bliss and the promise of pleasure to come. It had

been so perfect. She had never imagined it would be like that again.

The happiness fled. The loss she had staved off the previous night came flooding back, filling the

emptiness within her soul with its bitter harvest. She had gone into this knowing that she loved

him but that she could never keep him. Not Rowarth, with his responsibilities and his

obligations, not least amongst which was his need to produce an heir for his dukedom with some

suitable, blue-blooded, fertile aristocrat. She had borrowed him for one last night, loving him too

much to deny either of them. And now she would have to give him up because that was the only

thing to do.

“Sweetheart…” He was stirring. He stroked a palm over the soft skin of her stomach. He

sounded happy. Another crack appeared in her heart.

He rolled over, looked at her, and at the expression in his eyes she felt sudden acute

apprehension. Her heart was thumping. She knew he was going to ask her to be his mistress

again and she was so sorely tempted to agree. To have Alasdair Rowarth in her life again, even if

it was only for a little while…Would she sacrifice the independence she had achieved here and

all she had worked for in order to be with him? And could she watch him wed another woman

and produce an heir when she had thought once that she would be his wife and she knew that she

loved him more than anyone else ever could?

“I once asked you to be my wife, Eve,” Rowarth said. “Now I am asking you again. Will you

marry me?”

“Oh, no!” Eve could not quite bite back the words in time. This really was a disaster. She had not

imagined, not dreamed, that this could happen. And of course it was utterly impossible, for all

the same reasons that it had been before.

Rowarth was looking quizzical and a little chagrined at her outburst.

“I did not think the idea would be so abhorrent to you,” he said.

“I thought you were going to ask me to be your mistress again,” Eve said helplessly.

Rowarth did not look pleased. In fact he looked most forbidding. “That position is not on offer.”

Oh, dear. She knew she had offended him. No, she had hurt him. She could see it in his eyes. She

loved him so much that it made her want to cry, she who had once thought herself as hard as

diamonds. “I…I cannot.” Her heart was breaking piece by little piece. She wanted to explain

why, but it hurt so much to open up those final dark secrets that she did not think she could force

out the words. Besides, she
could not bear
to see his face when he knew the truth and to hear him

retract his proposal. Like her, he knew that a man, a duke, needed an heir to his dukedom. He

cared for Welburn so much, had done so since his youth with both a sense of responsibility and a

deep love. It would be imperative for him to pass on that love and that duty to the next

generation.

“My life is here now, Rowarth,” she said. “Flattered as I am by your proposal, I believe that it

would be a mistake to try to re-create what we had.”

He had gone very still. There was a hard, determined light in his eyes. “Last night you told me

that you loved me.”

Had she? She had no recollection of it at all, but during their impassioned lovemaking it would

have been fatally easy to pour out all the feelings she had harbored for him during those five

long, lonely years.

“Did I say that?” She forced lightness into her tone, making the entire experience sound no more

than a pleasant tumble rather than something that had touched her soul. “A figure of speech, my

dear. I certainly
enjoyed
it—”

He looked as though he was going to argue. He looked as though he did not believe her. Her

defenses felt perilously weak. One word from him and she might falter. She moved to put a stop

to it before it had started.

“I believe a gentleman can accept a refusal with good grace?”

Now he looked really angry. “If you wish to put it like that…” He bit the words out. “You tie my

hands, madam. I will say no more.”

He leaped from the bed, magnificently unconcerned about his nudity, and gathered up his

clothes, throwing them on haphazardly with swift, angry movements before wrenching open the

door. Then he looked back.

“Farewell, Eve,” he said.

She heard his furious steps on the stairs, heard also Joan’s startled squeak as they met in the shop

doorway and heard the door slam behind him. She lay still and forced herself not to watch him

walk away from her because she knew that if she did she would change her mind and run after

him and that was the one thing she could not permit herself to do.

It had been the most damnably miserable day. No matter that the sun poured down from a

cloudless sky and the pavements of Fortune’s Folly bustled with people shopping, taking the

waters or walking on Fortune Row. Eve was unhappy and Joan shook her head over her and

brought her endless cups of tea for solace.

“I told you so,” Joan said. “No good ever comes from tangling with handsome gentlemen.”

“I am not tangled,” Eve snapped. “He has gone.”

Business was improving. A young lady had called by that morning. Miss Alice Lister had

brought in a footstool to sell with an enormous, vulgar coat of arms on it.

“I’m afraid my mother embroidered it,” she said sadly. “She will sew our family crest on

anything that doesn’t move away fast enough. Please, could you get rid it for me? I truly cannot

bear to look at it.”

Eve had chatted with her and had smiled and sorted out the stock that had come in over the past

few days and the time had dragged, the hands of the clock edging around so slowly into a future

that now seemed colorless and gray. She had sent Rowarth away again because it was the only

thing that she could do, for his sake and her own. Now all she had to do was forget him for a

second time; no easy matter when she ached for him with every particle of her being.

At three-thirty the doorbell clanged again. Eve had been dealing with the accounts—hateful

job—while Joan was in the village. She came out into the shop in time to hear the key turn in the

lock and the shutters rattle closed.

“What on earth—”

Rowarth
.

Impossible.

He was standing just inside the door. He had the key in his hand. Shaking, Eve moved several of

the counter items at random. “I thought you had gone,” she said foolishly, since he was standing

right before her.

“I’ve come to claim something I lost.” He sounded confident, authoritative, the humor lurking

just below the surface. Eve’s heart leaped and she tried to quell its insistent beat.

“This is a pawnbroker’s shop,” she said, “not a lost property office.”

Rowarth smiled. Her stomach dipped. “I appreciate that. And there is another difficulty, too, I

fear. I cannot pay you. What I want is beyond price. You have to give it to me freely.”

“That isn’t the way that I do business.”

“It is now. I want your love. Your hand in marriage.”

“My
love?
” Her voice sounded squeaky as a rusty gate. “
Marriage?
Rowarth, I told you this

morning—”

“You told me that your words of love meant nothing. I think that you lied. I think you sent me

away because you are afraid to take the risk.”

Eve stared at him, unwilling, unable to lie again. That morning it had been painful enough. “I

cannot be held to anything I said in the throes of passion. It was so blissful I probably would

have said
anything
…”

Rowarth smiled again, devastating, wicked. She felt light-headed, dizzy with love for him.

“Eve…” He shook his head. “Take the risk. I love you—you make me happy, a better man. I

hope I make you happy, too. So we will wed.”

The blunt male logic of it made it sound so simple.

Eve’s throat closed with tears. How to dissuade him now? He had come several steps closer.

There was a smile in his eyes and a confidence about him that said he knew now how this would

end. She could not hurt him again, could not lie.

“We cannot marry,” she said defiantly. “I was your mistress. I am unsuitable. Everyone will talk

scandal.”

He looked unmoved. “I have had a great deal more women than you have had men, my dear.” He

shrugged. “Does the past matter, if we love each other?”

Actually she found it did. She was consumed with jealousy for all those women. She wanted to

rip them to shreds.

“If you believe that my past does not matter, you are mistaken,” she said. “No one will receive

me.”

He looked regretful. “Some will because of the title. But I know that it is a great deal to ask of

you. Do you love me enough to do it?” Then, as she hesitated, knowing she was only making

excuses anyway, he added, “Eve, you know that I am no callow youth with unrealistic ideals. I’m

old and cynical yet despite that I know that once I have found love—the real thing—I cannot

afford to let it go if I am ever to be happy again.”

Eve picked up a cuckoo clock, concentrating fiercely on it. “I cannot. I am illegitimate, and illeducated—”

He took the clock from her, placed it carefully on the desk and then took her hands, his gaze

suddenly intent. “You may recall that we have had this conversation before. I do not care about

your parentage or your education. You are loving and generous and warm and the most special

woman in the world and I knew it from the moment we first met.”

She could not look at him. She tried to free herself and was held fast.