Why had she stopped him? It had not been fear. Not physical fear anyway. She had wanted him even before he had come into the bedchamber. The wanting had become almost a pain as soon as he came to her and touched her. In fact, she had not waited for him to bring her against him. She had put herself there, in an instinctive need to dull the ache of her longing against his body. And on the bed she had felt no shrinking, no embarrassment-that came only now, afterward. She had felt no shock when his hands had found their way so easily inside and beneath her nightgown. She had only wanted more, had been aware with an almost unbearable surge of heat that even that was not enough. It was not enough that he was against her skin, caressing, teasing, exploring. She had wanted him beneath her skin, deep inside her very being.

Why, then, had she stopped him? It seemed now little short of miraculous that she had been able to do so when she had wanted him so desperately. But there lay her answer, she realized. Had she been less excited, less full of aching pleasure, she probably would have allowed him to carry the act to its conclusion. It was her very pleasure that had forced her to stop what was happening.

The truth was that becoming a man's mistress, allowing him the full access to her body that her upbringing had taught her she must surrender only to a husband, was totally against all the moral training of her youth. Until this day she had never even dreamed that such an offer as Lord Rutherford's could be a temptation to her. She would rather die than lose her virtue, she would have thought even just yesterday. Yet she had agreed to his offer. Her own future had looked so desperate that she had agreed. Better to become Lord Rutherford's mistress, she had reasoned, than totally to lose her pride by taking the only other alternative open to her.

But, her decison made, Jessica felt the need of punishment, or at least the need to feel that the employment she had agreed to would involve some hard work or some sacrifice. If she had found Lord Rutherford's touch unpleasant, if she had had to contend with fear or embarrassment or a sense of humiliation in bed with him, she probably would have considered that she was earning her keep, doing a difficult job only because she had no alternative, or at least no alternative that she chose to take.

Her conscience would not allow her to do something that she knew was almost the ultimate in sin and enjoy it at the same time. There would be no sacrifice in being the mistress of the Earl of Rutherford, no punishment for the sin involved. It would be wonderful. She would probably enjoy every moment of her life with him.

Jessica was sitting up in the bed, her arms clasped around her knees. She rested her forehead on them. She had saved herself by moments. Although he had still been beside her on the bed, she had sensed that she was about to bear his weight, that he was about to take a husband's privilege. A moment more and she would have known how all the yearning ache of those preceding minutes was to end. There was pain, she had heard. There was tedium and indignity, she had once overheard from two matrons who had not known she was within earshot. But she did not believe any of those things for one moment. Lord Rutherford would be as expert with his body as he was with his hands and his mouth. Probably more so. She had no doubt at all that she had deliberately denied herself what would have been the greatest pleasure of her life.

And for what? For continued life as a governess? As a companion? How very dreary was the prospect for what remained of her life. She slid under the bedcovers, determined yet again to try to sleep. At least she still had her most valuable possession, she thought wryly: her virtue. If she could be said to still have that. And at least she had more hope than she had had all day. Perhaps that elderly lady in London would be able to find her something.

She would not think of it, she decided, until the morning.

Or of Lord Rutherford.

Or of his lovemaking and the consummation she had missed.

Jessica tossed and turned on the bed for what remained of the night.

4

The Dowager Duchess of Middleburgh was seated at the escritoire in the morning room of her house in Berkeley Square when her grandson was announced. She was in the process of writing to one of her many old acquaintances scattered throughout the country and farther afield. She peered at him over the spectacles she had affected several years before, though the same grandson was in the habit of telling her that from the windows of her house she would be able to see an ant crawling over the Chinese roof of the pumphouse in the middle of the square if she felt it in her own interest to do so.

"Never tell me you are up and abroad already, Charles, m'boy," she said. "Can't be more than ten o'clock. Must be in love. With the Barrie chit?"

"Quarter past, to be exact," Lord Rutherford said, crossing the room and bending to kiss the wrinkled cheek offered for the purpose. "And no and no."

"You did look her over, though?" she asked sharply. "Not a beauty, I take it. But wealthy, Charles, and of good family. You could do worse."

"I suppose I could," he agreed. "I suppose I could get leg-shackled to a poor girl of bad temper and total absence of character. The thing is, Grandmama, that I don't need the blunt. I don't gamble, you know, and have only one expensive habit. And I have quite a sizable income. Papa is as rich as Croesus and you are said to have moneybags stuffed behind every wall in the house. And who else does either of you have to leave it all to but your favorite son and grandson?"

"You are our only son and grandson. And don't be impertinent with me," his grandmother said, laying down her pen and blotting her half-finished letter carefully. "Why are you here?"

"I am your grandson," Rutherford said. "And I have just returned from a journey you sent me on. I thought you would be interested to know that the girl will not suit. She turns me decidedly green."

"Nonsense," the duchess said. "You can't expect a gel of good family to jump between the sheets at a snap of the fingers, Charles. Gave you the cold shoulder, did she? Your trouble is, m'boy, that you know only one type of wench and think they must all be the same."

"Grandmama," he protested, "I do not live all my life in the gutter or in the boudoirs of actresses, I would have you know. I have met one or two ladies in my time. You and Mama, Faith and Hope, for example."

"What are we going to do with you, then?" she asked, frowning. "I refuse to die until you have got an heir, Charles. I'm not having anyone emptying out my walls on my death for the sake of what's-his-name. Henry? Theodore? Never can remember which one is next in line. The chinless one, anyway."

"Theodore," he said. "Grandmama, I promise to try my best not to pop off until I have done my duty in the nursery line. In the meantime I have a favor to ask."

"I knew it," she said suspiciously. "You did not rush over here the morning after a long journey because of filial loyalty, Charles."

He grinned. "I want you to help one of my failed oats, Grandmama," he said.

"A wench?" she asked sharply. "And failed, Charles? She's not in the family way? I don't intend to start providing for your bastards, my lad. I always told Middleburgh the same."

"I don't ask you to," he said. "My own purse will stretch to providing for all two hundred and thirty of them. No, this is a girl after your own heart, Grand-mama. She wouldn't have me. Twice. I unleashed all my not inconsiderable charm and skill on her, but she would have none of me. I, of course, consider her remarkably foolish."

"And you want me to help her, Charles? Ring the bell, boy. You will join me for some coffee. Nothing stronger. Too early in the day for you to start drinking. You probably do it for all the rest of the day anyway."

"Coffee will be welcome," he said, settling himself into a chair beside the fire and stretching his boots toward the blaze. "It is deuced cold outside today."

"It often is in November," she said.

"Miss Moore was a governess with the Barries," Rutherford said, "and I somehow caused her to be dismissed. She had rejected me cold, I would have you know, but because she was caught barefoot in the library with me, she was dismissed as a loose woman quite unfit for the charge of the Barrie chit. Oh, she was also wearing a sack of a nightgown and had her hair loose all down her back. And it was midnight or thereabouts."

"Hm," she said. "The chit was asking for it. I should help her to a whipping."

"Nonsense," he said. "She was looking for a book to put her to sleep."

"A man more like," his grandmother said.

"If that were so, she would not have refused my invitation, would she?" he asked reasonably.

"Did you ever consider that perhaps you were the wrong man, Charles?" she asked, peering at him over her spectacles again.

He laughed. "Grandmama," he said, "you will always keep me humble, I'm afraid. I met her on the road two evenings ago and failed again, I am sorry to say. Very sorry! But I feel responsible, you see. I gave her your direction and assured her that you would help her find employment." He smiled disarmingly.

"Did you indeed?" she said. "And as what, pray? As a chambermaid in this house so that you may molest her at your every visit? And I suppose I could expect you to grace me with your company twice daily?"

Rutherford's smile became more rueful. "She is refined, Grandmama," he said, "and virtuous. A lady in everything but fortune, I believe. You must know someone who needs a governess. You know everyone in the kingdom, I sometimes think. But one thing. You must get her away from London. Far away. I really have no wish to meet her again."