“If only you didn’t find every woman to your liking,” Claire sardonically noted, “your flattery would be more gratifying.” She smiled. “But thank you nonetheless. I find you extremely likable as well. As for Harriet’s prospects-Seego is a highly eligible party. We must hope that he is the man who Harriet found favor with last night.” She made a small moue. “Not that Harriet couldn’t be influenced by a future dukedom.”

“You may rest easy. It rather sounded as though the two youngsters were mutually enamored. I believe Seego used the romantic designation of-” the viscount’s brows rose-“soul mates.”

“No!”

“Oh yes.” Ormond’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “The young boy was quite positive.”

Claire sank back in her chair and softly exhaled. “I must say, I am greatly comforted by your news. If indeed, the two young people have an attachment, I am pleased. He is so much more suited to Harriet than-” she abruptly paused, realizing she’d almost been uncivil.

“You needn’t be tactful. I quite agree. And at the risk of offending you, I’m not likely to change.”

“I understand.” Ormond’s statement had been blunt in the extreme. “But then I am not an innocent like Harriet,” she calmly noted.

“So I discovered.” He peered at her with a searching gaze.

A small silence ensued.

“I needn’t explain to you,” she finally said.

“I just hope it wasn’t Charlie Rutledge.”

“No! My God, what do you take me for?” she cried, her face turning cherry red.

He was surprised at the degree of relief he felt. He was more surprised that he wished to be apprised of the men in her life when his philosophy had always been a cavalier live and let live. “If not Charlie-who then?”

Picking up her cognac, she held his gaze. “You don’t see me asking that of you, do you?”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t care if you did. Tell me.”

“No.” She took a sip of cognac. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“Obviously,” he drawled.

“Should I leave?” Purse-lipped, she set her glass down.

“No.” He could have said we have an agreement and I’ve already settled things with Seego, but he didn’t. Then perhaps because he had been selfish so long, and he was here today for his own pleasure, he sensibly shifted his stance. “It was wrong of me to press you,” he said with a conciliatory smile. “I apologize. Am I forgiven?”

How many times had he spoken thusly with that disarming smile and imploring gaze? How many times had women like her, forgiven him? “There’s no need to apologize,” she said, perhaps as selfish as he. “I just prefer not laying bare my life. I hope you understand.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

Neither could be faulted for their deft volte-face.

“Are you finished?” He nodded at her tea.

There was an authority in his voice that demanded compliance or was it the seductive allure in his dark gaze that made her answer, “Yes.”

He stood instantly, as though he’d been impatiently biding his time, and walking around the table, he pulled out her chair.

She took note of the small tick over his cheekbone as he helped her rise and the hard, firm line of his jaw. “You’re still angry.”

“Not in the least,” he smoothly replied.

“Nevertheless, I’m uncomfortable with you looking at me like that.” Was this situation turning out to be more perilous than she’d foreseen?

Quickly composing his features, he offered her his most charming smile. “Better? And if you need further verification of my good intentions,” he said, waving her toward a inner doorway, “very shortly, I pledge to make you exceedingly comfortable.”

He was being gracious. She would be foolish to relinquish the pleasure he offered since she’d thought of little else the hours past. “I gather you don’t like to be thwarted,” she murmured, moving past him.

“Generally not.” He smiled, in better humor now that he was moments away from doing what he’d come here to do. “But I’ll make an exception for you.”

“As I will for you. We agree then.”

She was a stubborn little minx, but then she was a hot-blooded little vixen as well and the latter easily trumped the former. “I gathered as much last night-that we agreed…in any number of ways.” In the grip of a novel possessive impulse, he heard himself say, “In fact, I may decide to lock the doors and keep you here for myself alone.”

She smiled at his absurdity. “Even you would not be so rash as to draw my aunt’s wrath upon your head.”

His surprise overcome, he answered with the lordly presumption of his class. “I would without question.”

“Then I must find some other deterrent to your threat,” she offered, sportively, thinking surely he couldn’t mean it.

“Good luck.”

His curtness stopped her in her tracks. She shot him a look. “Have I mentioned how much I detest authoritarian men?”

“Do you know many?”

She understood from his tone that she’d broached a contentious subject, but she refused to be intimidated. “No, I do not. Satisfied?”

He wasn’t, nor would he be until he knew the extent of her amorous amusements. But he replied, “Yes,” because he neither cared to acknowledge why her amusements mattered to him nor-more important-did he wish to delay further having sex with her. Taking her by the arm, he propelled her forward into the bedchamber. “Perhaps we can concentrate on satisfying ourselves in other ways, right now. We can discuss your dislike of authoritarian men,” he added, crisply, kicking the door shut behind him, “after you and I both come.”

“I may not want to come.” Her tone was as crisp as his, her spine rigid with affront.

“Let me be the judge of that,” he murmured, astonished even as he spoke that his words had such an arbitrary ring. “As for what you may or may not want, need I remind you that you have already agreed to please me.”

A taut hush fell.

“Would you like to withdraw from our agreement?” he inquired, breaking the silence. “If so, I could tell Seego that my partiality for Harriet terminated once I had my way with her.”

“Knave!” Claire spat, her eyes hot with temper. “You would ruin my sister so callously?”

“That and more I assure you,” he calmly replied. “You know as well as I that I am a rogue. So what will it be? You decide.” That he was experiencing the pangs of jealousy, he would not affirm. That he wanted what he wanted was more easily acknowledged.

“I seem to have no choice,” she said with icy disdain.

“Virtue is it’s own reward, is it not?” he noted with excessive sarcasm. “I’m sure your sister will profit by your sacrifice.” He nodded curtly toward the bed. “Take off your clothes and wait for me there.”

She should summarily refuse. And had Ormond not threatened cruelly to wreak havoc on Harriet’s prospects, she might have, she thought, moving toward the bed. Although the harsh truth was that it was not Harriet’s happiness alone that caused her to stay-but hers as well…however fleeting it may be.

At the sound of a key turning in a lock, she spun around.

“I’m not in the mood for interruptions,” he said, tossing the key on a table.

“You’re expecting company?” A hot, resentful query.

He didn’t answer for a moment, then he softly sighed. “I’m in a brutish mood. I apologize. Perhaps I’m too sober. I’m rarely sober at times like this.”

“My misfortune.”

He stared at her with a jaundiced gaze. “You’re a prickly little bitch. I should throw you out.”

“If the door wasn’t locked, you wouldn’t have to throw me out-I’d leave!”

Taking a step toward the table on which the key rested, he picked it up and without explanation, slipped it in his coat pocket. “I need a drink. Sit down,” he said, nodding at two chairs flanking the fireplace. “Relax. I’m not going to attack you.”

Much preferring his last suggestion to his previous order, Claire quickly complied, sitting down on an elegant green brocade fauteuil. She watched him pour himself a drink from a decanter set on a small pietra dura table. She watched him drink it down, refill his glass and do the same once again with a kind of strange acceptance, as though his moodiness matched hers.

She knew very well that she shouldn’t give into her passions, that making a pact with the devil for Harriet’s sake was unwise. Any sensible woman knew that when all was said and done, Ormond would bring her misery. But as Dryden said, “We loathe our manna, and we long for quails.” And dear God, the wild, heady passion Ormond offered-however transient-was the undoing of every woman who came within his scope.

She was no different.

And perhaps therein lay the rub.

In fact, just the sight of him approaching her now, sent a shiver of anticipation through her senses. She sat up straighter as though uncompromising deportment might fortify her against temptation.

Taking the seat opposite her, Ormond set the decanter he’d carried over on the floor beside his chair, and slid into a lounging pose. “Why don’t you just tell me about the men in your life,” he murmured, appraising her with a moody gaze, “and I’ll become normal again.”

“Normal? I doubt it.” She’d heard all the stories. Who hadn’t?

“Normal for me, then. It’s not as if I’d ever slept with a virgin or even wanted to-until you.” He smiled tightly. “Although, my luck held out. You weren’t.”

“How fortunate for you,” she replied, huffily, loathe to be categorized with the throngs of women in his past.

He ignored her huffiness; a few stiff drinks perhaps blurred the nuances. “I am mystified by my need to know,” he said, his singular focus undiminished. “But there it is. So humor me. Consider how gratified Harriet will be if Seego comes up to scratch.”

“Are we haggling here?”

“Call it what you like.” Picking up the decanter, he pulled out the stopper, lifted the cut-glass bottle to his mouth, and poured a large draught of liquor down his throat.

Concerned that he might become even more unmanageable should he empty the decanter, Claire weighed her options-along with her rather potent amorous desires-and came to a decision. A foregone conclusion any objective observer might have pointed out. “If I tell you what you want to know, will this conversation be at an end?”

“Yes.” Immediately setting down the decanter, Ormond gave her his full attention, an anomaly in situations like this. His normal pattern with women was to be attentive only to the degree tact and courtesy was required to attain his sexual goal.

Claire didn’t speak for some moments, finding it difficult to exhume feelings long buried. She had never before divulged her relationship with John Darton. But with Harriet’s future at stake, she steeled herself against painful memory. “I was once secretly engaged,” she began, speaking briskly as though once having made her decision, she wished the conversation quickly done. “My fiancé did not have the means to offer marriage at the time and we were content to wait. A wealthy uncle of John’s consented to purchase a captain’s commission for him and John sailed for India with the Light Dragoons. He hoped to prosper there and we would marry on his return. He died of fever in Calcutta instead,” she finished, holding Ormond’s gaze for a moment as though to say-Are you satisfied now?

“Your family didn’t know?”

She shook her head. “There was no point. Our marriage was impossible at the time. My father was retired on a colonel’s half pay; there was no money for my dowry and John’s family was in equal straits.”

“And there has been no one else?”

“Dear God, have you no heart?” she peevishly exclaimed. “I offer up bitter memories and that is all you can say?”

He shrugged. “I have no heart of late, it seems. My apologies.”

“Why does it matter anyway-whom I have known?” she asked with asperity. “You and I are nothing more than partners in lust.”

“It matters. Don’t ask me why. I couldn’t tell you.”

His stark statement had none of his mannered nonchalance. It was blunt and grudging. “There has been no one else,” she shot back, speaking with equal bad grace.

He had been reaching for the decanter and stopped. His dark gaze held hers for a telling moment before he pulled himself upright in his chair. “I’m sorry for your loss.” His voice was gentle, the moodiness gone from his eyes. “Having traveled that mournful path myself, I offer you my condolences.”

Disarmed by both his humanity and his recognition of their shared afflictions, she answered him more kindly. “Time heals I’ve found-at least to a degree.”

He smiled ruefully. “So I’ve been told.”

Experiencing a compassion she had not felt short moments ago, she wondered whether his sulky discontent only added to his allure, whether other women, too, felt the need to console him. “Let us not be blue-deviled today,” she murmured, “when we have reason instead to relish life.”