She lifted her chin, looked him in the eye in the semi-darkness, and tried to walk around him to the door. It was a foolish move to make, of course, as she discovered immediately. His hand clamped around her upper arm so that she bit her lower lip with the pain of it.

"Oh no, you don't," he said between his teeth. "I think I will have you learn, Jess Moore, that I am not to be trifled with. Haughty manner and saucy speeches are not suited to a common servant. And that, my dear, is precisely what you are, despite the patronage of a rather foolish old lady. Indeed, there would be many who would call you slut or worse if they knew just one half of what happened between you and me both in and out of a certain bed in a country inn a week ago. Did you not know that unmarried ladies of the ton do not lie with men or offer their bodies for free exploration?"

If he hoped to make her blush and cringe, he was not going to succeed, Jessica decided. She glared back into his eyes, only inches from her own. "Do you threaten me, my lord?" she asked. "Am I to expect the story of our night together to become common drawing room gossip if I refuse to repeat that night with you-with a different ending, of course?"

"My patience is wearing very thin," he said. "I do not need to threaten, Jess. I have never had to resort to using any sort of force to attract women to my bed and would certainly not begin on someone of such impertinent character. But I give you fair warning that I will not allow you to hurt anyone in this masquerade of yours. Do not try to win a rich or distinguished husband for yourself, Jess, or any influential female friend. Be sure that if you do, I shall find out all the details of your background for myself and pass them along to your chosen victims. That is no threat. That is statement of fact. I trust I make myself understood?"

"Oh, eminently so, my lord," Jessica said. "Tell me, pray, am I permitted to seek out a wealthy or influential protector? May I become another man's mistress without your carrying out the dreadful threat to expose my past? Or do you feel that by having lain in your bed and allowed your hands to touch me I have taken your stamp of possession on me? Pray tell me. I do not like nasty surprises. I should hate to have a future protector suddenly discover that my papa was an impoverished country clergyman."

"By God, Jess, you are impertinent," Rutherford said, his iron grip of her arm transferring to his other hand, while she found her free arm subjected to the same treatment. "Have you only just realized how very lovely you are? And how very desirable? Is that it? You have discovered that you need not teach for a pittance when you can make your fortune with your person?"

Jessica smiled broadly into his face. "Yes, that is exactly it," she said. "I may find someone more generous than you, my lord. And then, of course, I may not. Would you care to tell me the exact terms of your offer so that I may make comparisons when the other offers begin to come in? You understand, of course, that your chances will be very small if one of those rich, titled gentlemen should happen to wish to wed me even after you have made your shocking disclosure?"

"You are an unprincipled female of the lowest order, are you not?" he said, his grip tightening so that she winced noticeably. "I wish I had known back at that inn what I know now. I swear I would have carried that act to its completion. Do you believe my grandmother would have allowed you over her doorstep then?"

Jessica was unwise enough to tip back her head and laugh into his face.

She was not laughing a moment later. She was gasping against the onslaught of his mouth, wondering before she grasped the lapels of his brocaded coat and clung if her knees really were going to buckle under her and set her swooning at his feet.

It was a kiss without tenderness. It was meant to be insulting, punishing. One hand splayed behind her head and held it steady against the pressure of his mouth over hers. His tongue plundered her mouth without any pretense of gentle caress. His other hand moved downward over her spine, bringing each part of her body hard against his. Her clinging hands were soon imprisoned between them.

Memory came flooding back: memory of the smell of him, of the taste of him; memory of the ache that his mouth and tongue sent spiraling downward into her throat, through her breasts, and into her womb; memory of a warm bed and the feel of his long, muscled body against hers, of his hands moving, touching, caressing, arousing; memory of those hands against her naked flesh. Her hands loosened their grip on his lapels and slid upward around his neck.

His arms had moved to encircle her body and he held her close, though no longer bruisingly so. He still kissed her as deeply, but his tongue was circling hers, caressing it. Jessica lost touch with time and place.

"Jess," he murmured finally against her ear, "I could teach you to be very good at this, you know. You could be the best, most sought-after courtesan in England after you and I tire of each other. A long time in the future, if ever! You really are suited to nothing else now. You must see that. You have outgrown your days of innocence as a governess. And you can never be a real lady, my dear, however hard you dream. Cinderellas exist only in the pages of storybooks."

Jessica leaned back against the circle of his arms. Her own were trapped above them so that she was not able to accomplish a very lethal swing. However, her slap did have the element of surprise, and the room was filled for one moment with a very satisfying crack.

"I wish that to be the last time, my lord-the very last," she said, "that you make insulting remarks and suggestions to me. Your assumption that my impoverished background makes me therefore a woman of loose and low morals says a great deal about your own morality. I will not be touched by you again-ever. I trust I have made myself understood?"

He had not moved beyond parting his hands behind her back and dropping them to his sides. He did not say a word or make any attempt to stop her from sweeping past him and out of the room.


It was not wise to gallop one's horse through Hyde Park, Lord Rutherford told himself even as he did just that. Although it was late November and although it was relatively early in the morning, the park was rarely deserted. There was almost sure to be some maid out walking a dog, some tradesman taking a scenic route to his work, or some more fashionable person intent on walking off the cobwebs of the mind acquired the previous night. One was not expected to move at great speed in the park. It was uncivilized to do so. It was also dangerous.

Yet he galloped, the harsh wind of November whipping against his cheeks and causing his eyes to water. Cobwebs of the mind! His brain felt fuller of chain mail.

He did not know quite why he should still feel so furious over the events of the night before. After all, if the woman wished to masquerade as a lady of the ton, and if his grandmother chose to aid and abet her for the sake of amusement during the long and often tedious months of winter, it was really none of his concern. He had sent her to Berkeley Square, it was true, but he had done so in good faith, believing that he owed a helpless servant that much assistance in finding a new situation. And he had clearly explained the circumstances to his grandmother, had specifically asked that the woman be sent away from London.

If between them those two women had concocted some mad scheme for the profit of the one and the entertainment of the other, then he should shrug the matter off and forget all about it. At least he felt himself absolved from the promise he had made his grandmother to give the girl his company and help bring her into fashion. Why allow the matter to affect his whole mood, then? He would give it no further thought. Rutherford eased his horse back to a safer canter.

She had been presented to Mama, Faith, and Hope. He had glanced across the ballroom at a time when he was conversing with an acquaintance from the House of Lords, and there she had been with his grandmother, talking to his mother and Faith. Had Grandmama's wits gone totally begging? It was one thing for her to countenance such a trick on the ton. It was another to involve her son's family. They would all become the laughingstock when the truth was known. And then at the end of the very next set he had watched Hope approach the dowager and her charge of her own free will and converse with them until Godfrey, bless his heart, had borne Jess away.

It must not be allowed to continue, he decided as he had the night before. There was no point in talking further with Jess and appealing to her sense of decency. Clearly she had none. He must call privately on his grandmother that afternoon and see if he could make her see sense. He did not relish the task. The dowager was notoriously difficult to deal with. She had a will of iron and was not to be turned from any enterprise on which her heart was firmly set. He would just have to hope that she would be satisfied with last night's triumph and uninterested in continuing the experiment.

Good God! he thought with a renewed burst of fury, the woman had been a servant, a little scrap of a gray governess a mere two weeks before. She had been a meek little thing who never raised her eyes in public or uttered a sound. She had certainly known her place when she was with the Barries. And he had been misguided enough to pity her. And less than two weeks ago she had agreed quite coolly to become his mistress and had carried her agreement through to the very brink of fulfillment.

And even then he had pitied her. He had considered her a demure, frightened girl who had felt herself forced into giving up all her principles, but whose character had been strong enough at the last moment to save her and to plunge her into an even worse predicament. He had pitied her and tried yet again to help her.