“Is she still your mistress?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Absolutely not. I have it on decent authority that she fled across the Channel after assaulting me. And no, Keating. On my grave I swear that I would never have touched you if I was still involved with another woman.”
None of this was comfortable to hear—that these circumstances were so commonplace in his world that he had developed a sort of code of behavior for it. She didn’t know whether it was hopelessly sophisticated or debauched or neither. She didn’t know whether she regretted losing her innocence—or was it ignorance? It had seemed like shelter. But perhaps it never had been.
“I shouldn’t have touched you.” His voice was a shred now.
She heard the apology and regret in it. Very nearly anguish.
“But why did... why did she throw...”
“She wanted two things from me that I was at that moment both unable and unwilling to provide. An emerald necklace, and my undivided attention. You would be safe in assuming it wasn’t the first time she had a fit of pique.” A ghost of an ironic smile here. “All in all, I don’t believe she liked me very much.”
“Perhaps that was why you found the arrangement comfortable,” she said shortly.
He went still. A quick flame of anger flashed in his eyes, then wary respect settled in.
He didn’t laugh. Nor did he have anything to say in response.
A silence stretched.
“I met her at a salon,” he said quietly. “She eventually made a suggestion regarding a business arrangement which I found amenable at the time, and we came to an agreement. Which lasted for less than a year. I’m nearly thirty-six years old. She was not my first mistress. I find it excruciating to say these things aloud or to burden you with this information, but before you spend another moment of your life missing my company, you ought to better understand who I am.”
He said all of this so evenly. Even as she saw the tension at the corners of his mouth. The tautness of his skin across his cheekbones.
Such formal, even-toned words to describe an arrangement in which he paid someone to be available for sex.
Her stomach roiled. This was not a conversation a well-bred young girl would ever have, in any other circumstance.
Her father would be horrified.
And she knew she ought to be more horrified, too. But a thousand feelings swarmed her, like stinging gnats, and one of the strongest of them was fascination. But it was too much, all at once.
“But is it who you are?” she ventured slowly. “Or is it simply something you’ve done?” Her voice was shaking.
It was both a serious question and a suggestion. She wanted to understand.
He took this in, and something like surprise, or respect, flickered in his eyes.
But then that resolve moved into his expression again.
He was determined to build a wall, and she could not fight against it.
“I know myself. I possess a healthy portion of self-contempt—that is, an accurate amount, the amount I deserve, as you might say. I am aware of my strengths and my considerable flaws and I have abided with them comfortably for nigh on four decades. I know what I do and do not want from life. But if I were to contribute to your ruin, Keating, if I were to prevent you somehow from having the future you want and deserve by making love to you, I honestly do not think I could live with myself. I think it would destroy me.”
The words were raw and flatly, quietly, unequivocally delivered.
They nearly pressed the breath from her. Her eyes stung.
It seemed an admission of some enormity. She didn’t quite understand why. But simmering about the hard, crisp edges of his words was something like desperation.
Almost a plea.
She could and should walk away now. She should leave it be. It was the sane thing to do. He was doing the right thing to try to brick the two of them apart from each other with words.
But she had left sanity behind in that carriage, when she had moaned pleasure against his lips.
“But you think about it.” Her voice had gone hoarse. “Making love to me.”