And he was offering her the chance to make the comfort of this night a long-term arrangement. He wished to make her his mistress. He would take care of her. She would not have to worry about where she was to live, what she was to eat, where she was to find employment. It seemed incredible to Jessica that she could be seriously considering his proposal, but she was nonetheless.

Rutherford was looking across the table at her, a half-smile on his lips. "I find your silence encouraging," he said. "It really would not be a bad life, Miss Moore. I would provide you with a comfortable home, servants, a carriage. All your needs would be supplied. And your duties would not be arduous. Merely to please me. I believe you would not find that difficult to do. And I am vain enough to believe that you would not find the task unpleasant on your own account."

"I wish for honest employment, my lord," Jessica said, but she realized even as she spoke that her protest lacked conviction.

"And being my mistress would be dishonest?" he asked, his eyebrows raised so that he looked again as haughty as he had when he first entered the room.

"I have been brought up to believe so," she said.

"It is easy for the wealthy and secure to talk of morality, Miss Moore," he said. "I hate to bring brutal reality to your attention, my dear, but I believe you are face to face with it. Do you realize that if you refuse my offer it is very likely you will find yourself within the next week facing the choice of walking the streets or starving?"

Jessica had indeed thought of the possibility, though she did not suppose that if matters came to that crisis she would have the courage or the willpower to maintain the stubborn independence that had sustained her through the previous two years.

"Come, Miss Moore," Lord Rutherford said, removing his arm from the table and rising to his feet, "will you be my mistress?"

"Yes, I will, my lord," Jessica heard herself say.

"Splendid!" He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a manner that quite turned her heart over. He strode around the table and held out a hand for one of hers. "I promise you will not be sorry, Miss Moore. What is your given name?"

"Jessica," she said, and she placed her hand in his and rose to her feet. It was a large, strong hand. She felt an inner twinge of panic.

"Jessica," he said, smiling again. "Jess. It suits you. Not in your present guise, of course. Does your hair not pain you, dragged back from your temples so ruthlessly? It is beautiful hair. Let me see it as it was last night."

He did not wait for her response. He lifted his hands and began to remove the pins that held her hair into its prim bun. His hands were gentle and surprisingly deft. Jessica fixed her eyes on the top button of his waistcoat and stood very still until she felt her hair cascade down around her face and against her back.

"Now you look like a Jess," he said, "and will do so even more when I have clothed you in pretty gowns. Never gray again, my dear. And certainly never that hair knot. You do not have to disguise yourself ever again, Jess Moore."

His fingers were combing through her hair. Jessica looked up into his face again. Her father had always called her Jess. No one else ever had. Indeed, for the past two years no one had even called her Jessica.

And then he bent his head and kissed her. Very gently and unthreateningly. His hands were loosely twined in her hair. Only his lips touched her. But Jessica felt as if everything inside her changed places with everything else. This was it, then. She had said yes. She was going to be his mistress. She was allowing him to call her familiarly by name, to touch her. She was committed. She could not now object to anything he chose to do with her.

And what was more, she thought, as his hands moved to cup her face and his lips parted over hers, she did not want to. She knew that soon he must begin to touch her body. She knew that she would be taken through to the bedchamber, that he would unclothe her and lay her on the bed. And she knew that there she would make the final commitment that would forever remove her from the ranks of virtuous women, that would forever brand her fallen.

And she did not care. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted the unknown rites that would take place in the bedchamber. She wanted them over and done with so that she need not be plagued with further doubts. And she wanted them taking place now, here and now, because she knew, even without his having said so, that he would give her pleasure, that the events of the next minutes would be the most exciting of her whole life.

His hands did move down after a few moments, over her shoulders, to her full breasts, to her small waist and the curve of her hips. Jessica's heart beat so painfully that she thought she must faint.

"What a very effective disguise indeed," he murmured against her lips, "this gray sack, Jess. You have the shape of a goddess, my dear."

He spread his hands behind her hips as he looked down into her eyes and brought her slowly to him. She bit her lower lip and looked back at him as his hands slid up her back, bringing her fully and intimately against his body.

"I shall have your valise brought down," Rutherford said, smiling warmly into her eyes. "You may go through to the bedchamber, Jess. I shall join you there in-shall we say half an hour's time?"

"Yes, my lord," she said breathlessly, and allowed him to take her by the elbow and lead her to the door of the inner room.


Rutherford looked at his pocket watch. He would give her five more minutes, he decided. He might have made a tactical error in not taking her himself into the bedchamber and undressing her. It was his usual method. They could have sent for her bag in the morning. However, this case was a little different from the usual. Miss Jessica Moore was a virgin, or his guess was very wide of the mark. He had not had a virgin before and, truth to tell, did not know quite how to go about the matter of bedding her. He had deemed it wise to allow her time to prepare herself and clothe herself in that very virginal nightgown she had worn the night before. Time enough to remove it when they were under the bedcovers and he had warmed her up.

He was feeling unusally agitated himself, Rutherford thought, gazing down ruefully at the glass of wine he held in his hands. His third? Fourth? Of course, he was unaccustomed to awaiting his pleasure. And it was quite out of character for him to engage a mistress. He had done it once several years before and had been forced to endure the female long after inclination had made his visits tedious. It is far easier to begin such a relationship than to break it off, he had found.

His offer to Jessica Moore had been quite impulsive. The whole idea had been conceived and put into effect within one hour. Would he regret it? He did not even know if she would make a satisfactory bedfellow, though his brief exploration half an hour before had revealed a body even more feminine and curvaceous than he had suspected. Certainly tonight might not be an enjoyable experience. She would be nervous, awkward. She would have no idea how to please him. And he might hurt her. But even apart from the all-important sexual aspect of their relationship, would he find her an interesting enough companion to make him want to return to her again and again? He had enjoyed their dinner table conversation, but he realized that he had done almost all the talking.

The trouble was, Rutherford thought, putting his empty glass down on the floor beside him, getting to his feet, and removing his coat and waistcoat, he really had not had much choice but to make her his offer. Jessica, he suspected, did not quite realize how serious her predicament was. He had not exaggerated when he had told her that within a week she would be facing starvation or a life as a street prostitute. He owed her his protection. It was because of him that she had lost her situation with the Barries.

And by God, he admitted, removing his neckcloth and undoing the top buttons of his shirt, he wanted her. Finding a luscious beauty hidden behind the disguise of a little gray mouse was enough to stir any man's senses. He would not feel guilt. He was doing the best he could to look after her. He would treat her well. He always treated his women well in bed, always paid them generously afterward. Jess Moore would live like a lady, and he would provide handsomely for her when he finally tired of her. She would not need ever again to be a gray governess.

She was standing at the foot of the bed when he went into the room, brushing her hair and looking just exactly as she had looked in the Barries' library the night before. Rutherford closed the door behind him and allowed his eyes to roam over her. He expected her to look tense. She gazed calmly back at him and laid the brush down on a stool. He closed the distance between them.

"Have I kept you waiting?" he asked. "You look very beautiful, Jess."

He placed his hands on her shoulders and drew her against him. He lowered his mouth to hers. And immediately began the fight to control his desire. There was no virginal shrinking in her. Although his hands held only her shoulders, her body immediately fitted itself to his from firm, full breasts to knees. He cradled her head with one hand and rested the other against the small of her back. He set himself to ignore the demands of his body while he slowly coaxed her mouth into deeper intimacy.

He waited until his tongue had been allowed full and deep possession of her mouth before moving his hands knowingly over her again and lifting her up to carry her to the bed. She watched him as he undressed and climbed into the bed beside her. He had decided not to snuff the candles before doing so.

He wanted her then. He did not wish to wait another moment. He could not remember when the need to mount a woman's body had been quite so urgent. But she was not ready. She was langarous but not aroused. He set himself to arouse her, unbuttoning her nightgown to the waist so that he might touch her warm flesh, stroke her breasts with expert hands and mouth. He slid the linen of her nightgown up her legs so that he might caress her more intimately. She lay on her back, still, her eyes closed, her breathing quickened, her body tensing, and her heart thumping beneath the hand that moved over her left breast.

Now, he thought at last, lowering his head to kiss her deeply once more before moving his weight onto her so that he might enter her body and finally unleash his passion in her. She was looking at him, shaking her head slightly.

"No," she whispered. "No, I cannot. I am sorry. I cannot."

He brushed her lips softly with his own and willed control on himself again. "Relax," he said. "There is no haste. I can wait for you. I know it is your first time. I want it to be good for you."

"No," she said, and her eyes were big with unshed tears suddenly. "I cannot do this, my lord. I thought I could. I truly did. I have reasoned it out with myself and I can see no great wrong with it under the circumstances. But reason is no good against the moral habits of a lifetime, you see. Please, I must leave. I cannot do this."

Rutherford swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up with a jerk. He buried his fingers in his hair, his elbows resting on his knees. God, did she know what she was asking? Did she realize how very nearly impossible it was to grant her request? He willed calmness on his body. His mind would not function while the blood pumped so furiously through him.

"I am sorry," she said again from the bed behind him.

"So am I, Jess," he said. "So am I, believe me."

"It is just that I have been so frightened all day," she said. "I do not know what to do, you see. I do not even know why I am going to London. It is because I have to go somewhere and do something, I suppose."

"Yes," he agreed, hoping through words to drown out his physical agony, "I can understand your predicament. I thought I had offered a solution that would be thoroughly satisfactory to both of us."

"I think it might have been," she said, "if it did not feel so very wrong. And I truly do not know what I am to do now. But I must go to the room allotted to me here."

"There really is another alternative for you, Jess," he said, his thumb and one finger rubbing his eyes, concentrating hard on the activity. "I was too selfish to mention it while I thought there was a chance of the other."

"Oh, what?" she asked. She was sitting up behind him. He dared not turn around. Even if she had buttoned up her nightgown again, her hair would be in voluptuous disarray from the pillow and his playing hands.