Page 8 of Tempting the Bluestocking
“She enjoyed it,” he said. “I think perhaps she did not want to…but she did.”
Helene rubbed her hands together. “Good. This is good. It is as I said, you must try again. Now that she knows what you are, she won’t be so surprised next time you meet. I know Clare. Once she has had some time to cool off, she will come to her senses.”
Edward studied Helene for a long moment before speaking, trying without success to make sense of all this. “Begging your pardon, but it doesn’t seem as if she’s interested. Would it not be simpler to ask Ben for your money back and count it as a loss?”
Helene gave him a little smile. “I never give up, Mr. Norton. Besides, I do not think it would do you or your agency much good to be forced to return my money, and I’d rather not have to ask that of you. Am I mistaken in assuming you need the funds?”
Running a hand through his hair, he thought back to his sister and her excitement over the impending change in their fortune. It would break her heart to learn that he would be unable to deliver on his promises, and it would ruin them all for Norton & Rivers to fail to recover.
“Desperately,” he admitted. “But that is not your problem. It’s mine.”
“It may not be, but I don’t relish sending you away and accepting defeat,” she argued. “Please, won’t you try one more time? Let me talk to her and smooth the way, then you may return tomorrow. I promise you will find her far more amenable.”
Edward wanted to press her for answers and discover just why this was so important to Helene. Most aunts would want their nieces seeking a husband, not a courtesan, and remain chaste in the process. But he’d understood that theirs was an irregular relationship from the start. And truly, it was none of his affair. If Clare could be convinced to give him a chance, it would solve all his problems for the time being. The amount he stood to gain in this arrangement would be enough to pay the debts of Norton & Rivers, update Caroline’s wardrobe, pay his staff for a few months, and ensure they had more to eat than chicken, bread, and eggs. With the debts paid for the business, he could then move forward with ship repairs and open the line for business once again. Within half a year they’d earn enough to turn a profit. Should his time with Clare end before he felt comfortable with the business’s state of affairs, he’d simply seek another keeper, and another, until he no longer felt the need to go on doing this.
But, of course, for all that to happen he needed Clare to accept him into her life and her bed. He couldn’t give Benedict cause to cut him loose, and he didn’t have another fortnight to wait for a new keeper to be found for him.
Devil take it. This had to work, for he truly could afford no other option now, not when the business was on the very edge of collapsing forever.
“Very well,” he relented, finishing off the knot in his cravat. “I will return tomorrow afternoon, but if Clare still doesn’t want this, I will not press the issue.”
Helene beamed at him. “Thank you for being so understanding. I know this situation isn’t typical, but I promise it will be worth your while.”
“It’s no trouble,” he said, allowing her to usher him from the room.
As he followed Helene downstairs, Edward realized there was one other reason he’d let her convince him to try again. Aside from needing the funds, he found himself unable to forget the sight of Clare—eyes round with shock, then twinkling with amusement before melting into vibrant blue pools of desire. The feel of her body against him, the taste of her, the little sounds she’d made when their tongues had met. He wanted her, badly. More than he ought to since he’d only known her for a few minutes. He’d likely go to bed tonight with a hard cock and a mind overwhelming him of thoughts of what might have happened had she not ended their kiss.
Yes, he would return, and he would employ every weapon in his seductive arsenal until she gave in.
Edward left Helene’s townhouse with a smirk curving his lips as he thought over the pleasures to come in Clare’s bed. If a man had to sell himself for coin, he might as well do it with a woman as desirable as her.
Chapter 3
Clare slammed the clay pot on the wooden surface of her worktable, rattling the various implements she used in her study of plants. Her movements were abrupt as she shoveled soil into the pot, her teeth gritted so hard it made her jaw ache.
Typically, she found peace and happiness inside the small greenhouse filling the back courtyard, but today her anger and annoyance had followed her in here. She glowered at her collection of plants—some fully bloomed and others in various states of growth. The accomplishments of her various crossbreeding experiments paled in comparison to her embarrassment over what had just occurred in her bedroom. What had been meant as a gift hadn’t made her very happy. Instead, it only reminded Clare of her one and only experience with intercourse, an altogether uninteresting affair lasting a single night. Upon telling Aunt Helene about the forgettable encounter, she’d sworn off romantic relationships with men altogether. Why subject herself to the sweating, groaning attentions of anyone else if she would simply lie there in puzzled disappointment afterward?
In the years since then, she’d found joy in her work in the greenhouse, managing her various collections, and deepening her friendships with other like-minded intellectuals of both genders. While more than a few men had made their interest known, Clare had always rebuffed them as kindly as possible, keeping all her relationships with the opposite sex on a fairly platonic level.
Despite having been told that love and desire were powerful, all-consuming forces, she had never experienced them for herself. Even while finding a few men of her acquaintance attractive, she’d never been seized with the urge to form an attachment to one—physical or otherwise. Because of this, dreams of a husband and children had been pushed aside in favor of her other pursuits. If there was no man to be found who could make her want it with all her heart, then Clare saw no reason to bind herself to anyone for the rest of her life. She wanted it all—the love, the happiness, the desire—or she wanted none of it. She was content with life as it was, being an heiress in pursuit of her hobbies and intellectual diversions.
Using her gloved fingers to create a well in the soil for her seeds, she scoffed in disbelief. Just what had her aunt thought to accomplish with this little stunt? Clare had assumed Helene had given up after her insistence that it wouldn’t always be like her first time had fallen on deaf ears. Aunt Helene had engaged in her own discreet affairs over the years, so she certainly had more experience to draw on than Clare. That didn’t make her eager to go diving into the beds of every man who paid her attention in hopes that one of them would prove better than the first. It hardly seemed worth the time, and she had better things to do; such as potting her hybrid seeds and cross-pollinating another set of parent plants to make a fresh batch.
She covered her seeds with soil using far more force than was necessary, but she had no other outlet for her frustration. Peeling off one of her work gloves, she scratched out a note in her journal. The lead of her pencil grated against the paper with swift strokes as she recorded the date she’d planted the seeds born of cross-pollination between thecandidumandsuperbumspecies ofLilium.
The results of her other hybrid experiments sat strewn on every available space beneath the glass ceiling—blood red lilies with orange centers, others boasting purple petals bleeding toward white tips, and her personal favorite, a brilliant overgrowth of blossoms flaunting magenta petals melting into sunny yellow. TheLilium superbumseeds had been a gift from the wife of an American botanist she’d befriended years ago. The foreign plant had thrived in the moist, humid environment of her greenhouse, and now she could discover whether the brilliant colors of the Turk’s cap lily would burst through with the shape and hardiness of the Madonna lily.
She’d just set the first pot aside and reached for another when the door opened and Aunt Helene appeared before her, brows knit with concern. Giving her aunt a glare, she then went back to her work, filling this pot with as much aggression as she had the first.
“I can see you are still angry with me,” Helene declared, watching Clare shovel the soil as if burying a dead body instead of seeds. “You usually handle your plants with more care.”
“Seeds are hardy,” Clare argued without looking up. “They are in no danger of suffering at my hands.”
Helene leaned closer, filling the periphery of her vision. “And what of misguided, contrite aunts?”
Pausing with spade in hand, she flicked an irritated gaze at her aunt. “Contrite, you?”
Helene chuckled when Clare issued a rough snort, then pulled a stool closer to the table before sinking onto it. Hands braced on the table, she turned her head to admire the Turk’s cap.
