Page 70 of The Love Potion
She nodded. “Very well. Ask them.”
“After our evening is done, do we continue our situation? I would be paying for a year, you see. And are your terms for me alone or are you available for other protectors?”
She blinked twice before she answered. Clearly, she hadn’t even considered the idea. “I don’t understand.”
“I know a baron who is searching for a new paramour. Would you consider—”
“No!”
She spoke with pleasing vehemence, but he was not done. “Perhaps you object to his low title. I am a duke, after all. But I could bring you to Prinny’s attention. Becoming a royal consort would keep you in society. And I understand he sometimes pays very well.”Sometimesbeing the important word. With royalty, one never knew what bills they might forget. Not to mention the fact that the idea of her with Prinny made him want to vomit.
She appeared to feel the same way. “Absolutely not! How could you think I’d want that?”
He arched his brows. “These are the questions I’d ask any potential mistress.” He leaned forward. “I need to know why you picked me to gift with your virginity.”
“It’s not a gift. It’s a… a…” Her words failed her.
“A transaction?”
“Yes.” Her hands gripped her skirt, but she didn’t flinch from the truth. Indeed, she met his gaze with a challenge of her own. “If you will have me.”
He moved so fast, she released a squeak of surprise. One second, he was in a chair across from her, the next he was on one knee in front of her. He wasn’t immune to the irony. He would propose marriage this way, but tonight’s discussion was very different.
“If I’ll have you?” he scoffed as he reached up to cup her face. “Kynthea, why are you selling yourself so cheaply?”
She looked at him, her eyes wide and earnest. Damnation, she was so innocent, and yet their discussion was anything but. “I should ask for more? You mean…like, jewelry?”
She made him want to scream. “I mean, why aren’t you asking me to marry you? Why don’t you want to be my duchess?”
She recoiled from the question. And he saw her blink away tears. “Don’t mock me, Your Grace. It’s beneath you.”
“I’m not mocking!”
She turned back and there was bitterness in her gaze, poison in her words. “Do you think me stupid? I know you won’t marry me. Compared to you, I am nothing.MissPetrelli, impoverished and uninteresting to anyone except as an object of pity. Or scorn.” She added that last word with clear rancor. Then again, thetonhad not treated her well.
“You interest me,” he said. And when she did not respond, he tried again. “Why don’t you want to marry me? Why don’t you dream of standing by my side, of bearing my children, of holding my hand as our grandchildren play at our feet?” That was what he saw when he looked at her. He saw a future. He saw a woman who could stand with him before royalty and not be cowed. He saw a mother to smart children who could make a difference inthis troubled world. And he saw a woman who set his blood on fire.
“You know nothing of my dreams,” she whispered.
And perhaps that was the problem. He didn’t know what she wanted. Circumstances had forced her hand, otherwise she would not be here. But ignorance could be remedied. He cupped her cheek and pulled her face closer to his even as he stretched up for her. He could not be this close without wanting to kiss her.
“What do you dream of?” he asked. “Tell me. Maybe I can make it come true.”
Her expression shifted, twisting in ways that hurt to see. She was in pain, and he was making it worse. But he had to know why she couldn’t even imagine more for herself.
“You must know,” she whispered.
“I swear I do not.”
She touched his hand where it cupped her face. “I dream of you, you idiot. Why else would I have gone into the tack room with you?”
The urge to kiss her nearly overwhelmed him, but he had dreams as well. And she was too perfect a woman for him tonotquestion it. “Why me? Is it because I gave you your first quickening? Is it because I am a duke? Why me, Kynthea? Why would you offer me something so precious as yourself?”
“You can ask that? You sat by my side for a week defending me against every snide, crude remark. You who sit with royalty, defended me.”
“You were innocent of their charges.”
“You discussed literature and Corn Laws with me without condescension.”
