Page 61 of The Truth About Lord Stoneville
With an expression of relief, he nodded, then trotted off down the hall.
She watched him go, her heart in her throat.And youlike him, too.She did. But it could go no further. She wasn’t fool enough to lose her heart to a man who could kiss her passionately one minute and head off to a brothel the next.
No matter how much her heart broke for what he’d suffered.
Chapter Sixteen
Oliver sat in his usual chair drinking brandy, while a succession of Polly’s whores paraded in front of him. And he felt . . .
Nothing. No stirring in his cock. No urge to tup. Just a bone-deep disgust with himself.
When had Polly’s whores started looking so . . . sad? The madam had done her best to please him, offering her choicest ladies to pique his interest. Yet their soft words and lush bodies and erotic gestures were wasted on him. For the first time, he saw the falseness in their smiles, the boredom they tried hard to hide.
Worse, he kept comparing them to Maria. Her smiles were never false. They might be rare, but when he won one it felt like a real triumph, precisely because it was genuine. Because she gave it to him by choice.
What triumph was there in winning the smile of a whore, when all she wanted was the contents of his purse?Not that he’d ever thought they would clamor to bed him without the money, but he could usually maintain the illusion enough to forget himself in their bodies. Sunk in his own misery, he generally paid no attention to theirs.
Now that was all he could see. Seemingly overnight, they’d transformed from genial companions in wickedness to everyday women living a hard life where they only survived by satisfying men’s urges.Hisurges.
Being moral and disciplined is hard work. Being wicked requires no effort at all—one merely indulges every desire and impulse, no matter how hurtful or immoral.
He knocked back the rest of his brandy in a vain hope that the fiery liquor would purge Maria’s words from his mind. What did she know about it? And why did he even care what she thought? It was none of her concern how he chose to forget his troubles. He paid for his pleasures, damn it, and he paid well.
While his estate suffered. While his tenants worked their farms from dawn to dusk. While his servants relied on him for their livelihood, and his siblings looked to him to save them all.
A cold chill swept over him that even the brandy couldn’t warm.
“Milord,” Polly said, perching on the arm of his chair with a salacious smile. “Perhaps you need something a bit more fresh and sweet to tempt your palate.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d offered him a “virgin.” He’d always refused politely but firmly, uninterested in that unsavory part of the trade—country girls who came to thecity, eager to see the world, only to find themselves forced onto their backs because of clever women like Polly.
This time, the very idea of it revolted him. He kept seeing Maria landing in such a situation through no fault of her own—sometimes the line between respectable woman and fallen woman could be paper thin. He knew that better than anyone. Why, even his sisters, if taken advantage of . . .
“No,” he said hoarsely, pushing himself to his feet as his stomach churned. “God, no.”
He stumbled from the brothel to retch in the street. It was the brandy, that’s all. The damned cheap brandy, mingling with his morbid mood to make him unable to find pleasure in his usual pursuits.
Deuce take it all, hewouldfind pleasure if it killed him! There were other places he could go, places less sordid. That’s what he needed.
Reaching the opera house just as the night’s performance was ending, he went backstage to where half a dozen dancers were entertaining admirers in their dressing room. They were fun girls, always ready for a night on the town. Fun girls were what he needed right now.
Yet after ten minutes of their flirtations, he’d had enough. He kept thinking that any man of consequence would please them—if he dropped dead in their presence right now, they would mourn him with a drink and a dance, and forget him by next week.
Suddenly, that wasn’t enough.
The realization staggered him. Swearing foully, heleft there to go to a tavern, then a club, then a party that someone in the club dragged him to, where the demimonde were sporting with their protectors. But all he could rouse himself to do was drink, and even that he was sick of by the end of the evening.
It was no use. Maria had infected him somehow with her morality. He would have to purge her from his mind and body before he could return to his usual pursuits.
If he ever could. The sobering thought plagued him as he ordered his coach around and had the man head for home.
Home? Halstead Hall wasn’t home! This was what came of letting a sweet little virgin capture your eye. You started considering the future, letting the weight of responsibility color your actions. You started hoping for the impossible. You started thinking that perhaps you could actually—
A groan escaped him as he settled against the squabs. This obsession with her was mad. He’d spent his entire night on the town without once plunging his cock into a willing whore, without evenwantingto. It was insanity!
Yet it was Maria who consumed his mind on the journey home, Maria and the light in her eyes as she’d said he wasn’t doomed. Maria and her lush, innocent kisses and how they made him feel.
He didn’t want to feel, damn it! He’d survived all these years without feeling. Now all the feelings he’d kept in his strongbox were spilling out, no matter how much he held down the lid.
