She pursed her lips and looked back into his eyes.

"Yes," she said.

She did not realize he had been holding his breath until he expelled it audibly.

"I might have found it difficult to wield an axe," she said, "but a pistol was a weapon I was quite capable of using. I used one. I shot him through the heart with it. And I have never regretted it. I have not for one moment mourned him."

His head had dropped so that he was looking down at the floor and she was gazing at the top of his head. She thought his eyes might be closed.

The fingers of both his hands curled into his palms. He did not speak for a long time.

"Why?" he asked at last.

"Because," she said, and smiled though he was not looking at her.

"Perhaps because I felt like doing so."

She ought to have said no to his original question. Was she trying to drive him away and sabotage her carefully laid plans? She could not have chosen a better way.

There was another loud silence. When he spoke again, his voice was scarcely audible.

"Did he abuse you?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "He did."

He lifted his head at last and looked intently at her again with troubled eyes, a frown between his brows.

"I am sorry," he said.

"Why?" she asked him, her lip curling. "Could you have done anything to prevent it but failed to do so, Lord Merton?"

"I am sorry," he said, "that so many men are brutes simply because they are physically stronger than women. Was it bad enough, then, that you had no alternative but to kill him?"

But he answered his own question before she could do so.

"It must have been. Why were you not arrested?"

"I shot him in the library," she said, "late in the evening. There were no witnesses, and by the time a number of people gathered there, drawn by the noise, there was no knowing who had done it. There was and is no proof that I did. Anyone could have. Anyone at all. The house was full of servants and other residents. The library window was open to the whole world beyond. No one can prove anything except that he died of a bullet wound."

"And except," he said, "that you have confessed to me."

"And to no one else besides you," she said. "You will fear from this moment on that when you are asleep one night I will kill you too in order to keep you silent."

"I am not a tattler," he said, "and I am not afraid. You must not be either."

"I do not fear you," she said. "A gentleman does not reveal a lady's secrets, and I believe you /are/ a gentleman. And I do not fear you would ever abuse me. If you did, I would not kill you. Why would I when I can simply walk away from you as I could not from a husband? A widow has power, Lord Merton. She is free."

Except that she was not. Her lack of money set her in thrall. And somehow this conversation was not proceeding at all as she had planned it in her mind. Then she had been able to control his answers as well as her questions. She was not sure there was a way of bringing it back under her control.

"I will be happy," he said, "to be your lover. I will treat you kindly.

I promise you that. And when it is over, you will simply tell me and I will go."

"But the trouble is, Lord Merton," she said, "that I cannot afford a liaison that is simply an affaire de coeur."

It was not at all as she had intended to say it. But it was too late now. The words were out, and his gaze had sharpened further on her.

"Cannot /afford/?" he said.

"A man who succeeds to his father's title and property and fortune," she said, "is almost always going to consider his surviving stepmother an encumbrance. But most such men honor their obligations nonetheless. The present Lord Paget did not."

"Your husband left no provision for you in his will?" he said, frowning.

"Or in your marriage contract?"

"Certainly he did," she said. "Do you think I would have killed him if I had known I would be left destitute, Lord Merton? I was to have the dower house at Carmel for my use during my lifetime, and the house in town here. I was to have a money settlement, all my personal jewelry, and a comfortable pension for life."

He was still frowning.

"Can Paget legally withhold any of those things from you?" he asked.

"He cannot," she said. "Neither can I legally kill a man. His father, in fact. It was a stalemate, Lord Merton, but he resolved it. He would not pursue prosecution against me if I just simply went away empty-handed."

"And that is what you did?" he asked her. "Simply went away? Even though there was no evidence against you?"

"Evidence, Lord Merton," she said, "can very easily be trumped up against someone one does not like."

He stared at her for a few moments before closing his eyes and lowering his head again.

Seduction by a lady of questionable reputation followed by a business agreement by a courtesan – an /expensive/ courtesan, an /irresistible/ courtesan. And he would come to heel like a well-trained puppy because his appetite would have been aroused but not fully sated. He would be panting with lust for her.

That had been the plan. It had been clear in her head, and it had seemed perfectly reasonable. She had not expected it to be at all difficult to implement.

The plan had gone quite awry, however.

She began swinging her foot slowly again. She looked at his tousled golden blond curls with as much scorn as she could muster. She waited for him to get up and go away. She almost hastened him on his way by telling him to leave.

She did not fear what he would say to others after he had left. He /was/ a gentleman, she believed. Besides, he would not wish openly to admit to anyone that he had been lured into the bed of a notorious murderer.

He lifted his head again, and it seemed to her as his eyes met hers in the growing light of day that he was paler than he had been, that his eyes were bluer. And very intense.

"You have nothing?" he asked her.

She raised her eyebrows.

"I have enough," she lied. "But if you are to be my lover, Lord Merton, you are also to be my protector. You will pay me for services rendered.

You will pay me as you would the most celebrated of courtesans. Very well indeed, that is. And I will render services that will be ten times more satisfying than any courtesan would offer. Tonight was a mere pale sampling."

It sounded like a foolish boast. She almost expected him to laugh at her.

"You were not attracted to me at all, were you?" he said. "You came uninvited to Meg's ball in order to find a protector."

She smiled at him – and her slipper finally fell off her foot and landed on the floor with a soft thump.

"A lady does, Lord Merton," she said, her voice low, "what a lady must." /Go/, she told him silently. /Please go. Go away and never let me have to see you again/.

There was rather a lengthy silence during which they continued to stare at each other. She would not look away, she decided. Neither would she say anything more before he did. She certainly would not jerk to her feet and rush inside her dressing room and slam the door and press her body back against it until he had gone.

"I will pay you weekly, Lady Paget," he said at last, "in advance.

Beginning today. I will send a package as soon as I return home – or at the earliest respectable hour, anyway."

And he named a weekly sum that had her heart thumping in amazement.

Could courtesans possibly earn /that/ much?

"That will be satisfactory," she said coolly. He had stopped calling her /Cassandra/, she noticed. "You will not be sorry, Lord Merton. I will service you very well indeed."

A light flashed deep inside his eyes.

"I do not wish to be /serviced/, ma'am," he said, getting to his feet,

"as if I were some sort of animal that functioned on blind lust alone. I doubt there /are/ such animals, anyway, except those of the human variety. I will be your protector. Technically you will be my mistress.

But I will bed you when our desire is mutual. I will bed you when you wish to be bedded and desist when you do not. We will be /lovers/ or we will be nothing. Your weekly salary will not depend upon the number of times you make your body available to me upon that bed or any other. Is that clear to you?"

She gazed at him in some surprise. She found herself almost afraid of him. Not afraid in any physical sense. She was reasonably sure that he would never hurt her. But he was… She did not even know what he was, what it was about him that had made her suddenly afraid.

Was it the fear that she could not manipulate him as she had expected to do? He was young and good-natured and gentlemanly – and there was a definite air of innocence about him. She had expected him also to be rather weak, or meek anyway – to be easily controlled by the power of sex.

She might have misjudged him.

It was a ghastly possibility.

But he had agreed to be her protector for an indeterminate length of time. And he was paying her more than handsomely. She had been planning to demand a little more than half what he had offered.

"Oh, very clear," she said, standing up after kicking off the other slipper, and stepping closer to him. She lifted her arms and busied herself with straightening his neckcloth and restoring some of its intricate folds. "We have an agreement, then, Lord Merton."

"We do," he said, and he lifted his hands to take her by the wrists.

She raised her face to his and smiled.

He did not smile back. His eyes searched hers.

"You do not have to wear it with me," he said softly.

"/It/?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Your mask of cold contempt for the world and all its human creatures," he said. "You do not need to wear it. I am not going to hurt you."

She felt real fear then and would have turned and run after all if he had not been holding her wrists, though his grip was not a tight one.

She smiled instead.

"How lowering," she said, "to smile at one's lover and protector and be told that it is an expression of cold contempt. Perhaps I ought to frown at you instead."

He lowered his head and kissed her briefly but hard on the lips.

"You are going to Lady Carling's at-home this afternoon?" he asked.

"I believe I might," she said. "The lady did invite me, and I think it would be amusing to watch the reaction of her other guests."

"My sisters will be three of them," he said. "They will treat you with courtesy, and Lady Carling herself will be kind. I will bring my curricle there and take you for a drive in the park afterward."

"You will do no such thing," she said, drawing back from him. "You have nothing to gain and a great deal to lose by consorting with me publicly."

"I will visit you here discreetly at night and with all due care to your reputation," he said. "But you are not a courtesan, Lady Paget. You are a lady, and one whose reputation with the /ton/ is in need of restoration. I do not know what happened with your husband, though you have told me the bare bones. I believe there is more – much more – and we will speak of it as time goes on. But your reputation does need to be restored. It will be done at least partly in my company. And if you believe my reputation will suffer great harm from it, you do not understand the double standard with which the beau monde – and all of society for that matter – judges the behavior of men and women. Sherry, for example – Sheringford – is in the process of being forgiven, while the lady with whom he eloped would have had a far more difficult time of it if she had lived and chosen to return here. My reputation will remain virtually unsullied if I escort you about London. Yours will gain from association with me."

"You do not need to be kind to me, Lord Merton," she said.

"If the word /protector/ means merely that I have exclusive and unlimited access to your body," he said, "I do not really want the position. If I am your protector, then I will /protect/ you as well as sleep with you."

She sighed deeply and audibly.

"I believe," she said, "I found myself a monster last evening when I merely expected an angel – a /wealthy/ angel. Your sisters, no matter how courteous they are to me this afternoon, will be quite appalled when you arrive at Lady Carling's to bear me off to the park with you."

"My sisters," he said, "live their own lives, and I live mine. We do not control one another. We merely love one another."