Читать книгу In the Flesh - Portia Da Costa - Страница 10

The Indecent Proposal

“MISS BEA! MISS BEA! Wake up!”

Sleep had Beatrice in its grip. Holding her down deep, it wouldn’t be shaken off and she was drowning. But not in the sea or the grimy Thames or even the lake at Westerlynne. No, she was lost in a pair of dark blue eyes.

There was no escaping them. And she didn’t want to. Swathed in her dream, and enveloped in heat and sensation, she pressed her soft body to the hard muscled form of a man.

Beatrice’s eyes snapped open as two things impressed themselves upon her.

One was that her maid Polly was leaning over her and shaking her shoulder with far more vigor than most employers would tolerate from their servants.

The second realization brought a furnace of blush to her already warm cheeks. Beneath the covers, her flannel nightgown was bundled around her hips in a twisted, tangled bunch and her right hand was pressed firmly between her thighs.

Damn the man. All his fault. He was debauching her in her dreams now. Heaven help her when …

“Miss Bea! Come on! Please wake up, there’s men in the kitchen!”

“Men in the kitchen? What in goodness’ name do you mean? What men?” Beatrice snatched her fingers from where they’d strayed. Thank heavens for the mound of bedclothes, tucked high up to her chin. She struggled to wake up properly, still blinking at her maid.

“Two men, Miss Beatrice. They just arrived at the area door and Enid let them in. You know how daffy she can be when she’s half-asleep.”

Polly looked flushed, almost as pink in the face as Beatrice imagined herself to be. The young woman’s plain morning cap was sliding awry, as it often did, and one or two wisps of her flaxen hair were already tumbling.

“Arrived for what? What kind of men, Polly?”

A succession of horrid possibilities, all alarming, presented themselves.

When the photographs had first appeared and her notoriety as the Siren had begun, a variety of gentlemen of the lower press had hung around, hoping for a sight of her, or a statement. For a while it had been quite impossible to go out. But then a new sensation had arisen, as they always did, and her journalistic followers had thankfully drifted away, only to be replaced by a threat of another flavor.

Bailiffs!

Oh no, it hadn’t come to this, had it? Just when a solution, however imperfect and insalubrious, had presented itself. And even if it wasn’t the dreaded bailiffs, there’d been some decidedly shady and tough-looking coves loitering in their street the past few days. They didn’t approach in the way the journalists had, but just looked menacing, and Beatrice sorely feared they might be the hirelings of Charlie’s many creditors.

Thoroughly rattled now, Beatrice wriggled her way into a sitting position while at the same time surreptitiously pushing down her nightgown. Erotic fancies must be set aside for the moment in order to deal with hard, cold realities. She just hoped these men could be reasoned with, and persuaded to wait until Ritchie presented his indecent proposal and some money was forthcoming. Reaching for her shawl, though, she was embarrassingly aware that her fingers were somewhat fragrant, and with a scent that Polly would no doubt recognize.

“Have you woken Mr. Charles? I think he’ll want to deal with this.”

He wouldn’t, actually. Charlie would be worse than useless in this situation, and Polly had actually done the sensible thing coming to her first. But she didn’t want to insult her brother’s manhood by coming out and saying he was hopeless.

“No, actually … they … should I say he said to speak to you, Miss Beatrice. The one in charge, that is. He’s brought a letter for you, and he says a reply is expected by return.”

“The one in charge? In charge of whom? What letter?”

Dear heaven, the offer was here already?

And there was only one “man in charge” whose face sprang readily to mind. She could have drawn it in perfect line-for-line detail this very moment. Complete with the narrow wicked smile he’d worn as he dallied with her. The same demonic yet beautiful expression that had been on his face while he’d touched her.

Polly snatched up the tiny silver correspondence tray from the chair beside the bed and presented it as a moment-by-moment memory of all that had occurred last night washed like a waterfall into Beatrice’s mind.

Ritchie’s face. His smile. His hands.

His deep blue eyes, burning like dark coals. The devil!

But even though Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was only a gentleman of sorts, she couldn’t imagine him being content to wait in the kitchen for her answer to his own letter. Especially not with Cook blathering on at Enid, and the smoky range, and dish cloths and tea cloths all hung up to dry, and the general state of disorder that pervaded a house with not enough servants.

Beatrice grabbed the letter. She had absolutely no shred of doubt it was from him. He was just the type to demand an instant reply. The arrogance of him, all hurry, hurry, hurry, dance to his tune. He wanted to buy her body, on terms to suit him alone, and he wanted the agreement signed, sealed and delivered before she’d had time to entertain first thoughts, never mind second ones. It was a wonder he hadn’t sent a solicitor to notarize the agreement. Maybe one of these men was a lawyer? It wouldn’t surprise her.

Yet now that she had the momentous missive in her hand, she hardly dared crack open its seal, despite the fact that Polly was nearly dancing with curiosity beside the bed. To read the proposal was to make it real. Last night, at the glittering ball, she’d consorted with Ritchie, but now all that seemed like a voluptuous magic-lantern show, as phantasmagorical as the erotic dream from which she’d woken.

This letter represented the cold, sordid fact that she was selling her own flesh to get out of debt. She was an “unfortunate” who was fortunate enough to be desired by a man as rich as Croesus. And the fact that he still excited her was the most disturbing thing of all.

“These men, Poll … how long have they been here? I assume they’re servants, not gentlemen? And if they are gentlemen, what were you thinking not showing them into the parlor?”

“They arrived about five minutes ago, Miss Beatrice. Knocking on the kitchen door … Gave Cook a bit of a start, and before I could stop her, Enid had opened to them. I was going to run round next door for Fred, but it didn’t seem worth it. Either one of them would make ten of him.” Mangling her apron in her hand, Polly seemed to be struck by the same mix of excitement and anxiety that gripped Beatrice. “The fair-haired one said he wouldn’t leave until he had a reply, from your own hand!”

Fair haired? Domineering and bombastic? As the master, so the man … or perhaps one and the same?

But then again, Ritchie wasn’t exactly bombastic. More clever than that, he was a subtle, persuasive libertine, and he’d swept her into scandalous and sensual behavior by dint of making her believe that was what she wanted.

Making her accept, nay, admit that it was what she wanted.

Beatrice set the envelope down on the counterpane and tried to concentrate. What exactly had she said last night?

What did I lead him to expect? Why can’t I remember the precise words?

But it was actions she remembered clearly … and reactions. All else was a delicious, slightly alarming haze. Surely she’d not partaken of all that much champagne? Even the glass of brandy she’d so boldly dashed down had been modest.

It wasn’t the alcohol. If she’d become inebriated, surely she wouldn’t have been able to recall the physical details. His touch. What she’d done, and had done to her. It all still lingered in her memory, every second perfect and crystal clear.

“This man, the blond one. Did he say who sent him? Does he look as if he’s in service with a gentleman?”

Polly’s eyes narrowed and her full mouth took on a sultry expression. Beatrice didn’t need telling that the mysterious message carrier and his associate had made an impression, and stirred up her maid’s frisky side.

“Well, he’s a smart sort of chap. He doesn’t look like a toff, but he’s well set up. Very well set up.” Polly cocked her head on one side, and licked her lips. “They both are, Miss Bea. If I was in the position to get a letter, I wouldn’t mind getting one from either of them, I must admit.” Did Polly wink? Beatrice could swear she had done. She gave the girl an old-fashioned look, and Polly, used to being absurdly indulged, replied with a shrug.

“Did he say who sent him, this spokesman of the pair, who the letter is from?”

“It’s from a gentleman of your recent acquaintance, he said. Said you’d be expecting it too.” Polly nodded at the envelope, where it lay on the bedcover like an incendiary device clad in heavy cream bond. “Aren’t you going to open it now, miss?”

“All in good time, all in good time.” She didn’t look up. Clever Polly had instincts like a razor. Especially when she scented something juicy going on. “You can go back down and inform this man in charge of yours that I’ll reply when I’m good and ready. He and his friend can wait if they so desire, but they might be here all day, and I’m sure whoever sent them has other duties for them.”

“Yes, miss. I’ll tell him that exactly.” Polly’s eyes twinkled when Beatrice finally lifted her gaze, and she adjusted her cap and straightened her apron. “But I don’t really think he’s my man in charge at all, miss. In fact I think his mate is much more my fancy. A bit rough and ready and I like them that way.”

“Polly!”

Beatrice was well aware of what the other woman liked, and it wasn’t always as rough and ready as she’d just claimed.

“Would you like some tea, miss? For while you read your letter?”

Beatrice quelled a smile. Incorrigible as she was, Polly’s heart was kind. The two of them had been together a long time, and circumstances had forged a bond between them far beyond a conventional mistress and servant status. Beatrice was tempted to confide. But she really had to read the letter on her own first, and absorb its import without even Polly to distract her.

“Yes, thank you, Polly. And you might as well give your men some tea too.”

Polly bobbed a curtsy and retrieved the silver tray. “Shall I wake Mr. Charles then?” She paused, her eyes shrewd. “Or will you deal with it, miss?”

To involve Charlie now would only cause a disturbance. He’d want to play his “man of the house” role, as any brother guardian quite naturally would. But it would be easier to present this to him as a fait accompli, with all the financial advantage it entailed already in place. He’d been strangely distracted last night in the carriage, and had barely spoken, his face relaxed and dreamy. It was probably much kinder to leave him in the dark for the moment and let him enjoy whatever it’d been that had put him in such a gentle good humor. He’d only get cross if he knew a certain person had come calling, and be both outraged and enraged—with perfect justification—on learning exactly what that person had come calling about.

“No, let him sleep, Polly. And don’t mention our visitors until I’ve seen him.” Polly’s nod spoke volumes about her understanding of her employers, and Beatrice nodded back with a resigned little shrug.

But as her maid reached the door, Beatrice called out. “This man … the one who seems to be in charge. Does his fair hair have a bit of curl about it?” Her hands shook as she studied her own name, written in strong, energetic script on the heavy, expensive-looking envelope.

“Why yes, Miss Beatrice, how did you guess? That’s him to a tee.”

Beatrice picked at the seal on the back of the envelope with the edge of her nail. “And his eyes, did you by any chance catch a glimpse of them? They wouldn’t happen to be blue, would they?”

Polly’s smile was sly, even more speculative than before. “Yes indeed. Dark as night they are, almost black, a bit like India ink, Miss.”

Beatrice ripped open the envelope, tearing the single sheet inside in the process, and when the faint but distinctive scent of a most particular cologne rose up from the paper, her body quivered as if its wearer was reading over her shoulder.

THE OFFER WAS utterly ridiculous.

You’re buying my body for a month, Mr. Ritchie, not my immortal soul in perpetuity!

Not that Ritchie’s largesse wasn’t tempting. Although she tried not to be a greedy and acquisitive woman, Beatrice was honest enough to admit she enjoyed life’s comforts: books and journals; a pleasantly appointed home and tasty food; the occasional new gown or pair of shoes, and outings or at-homes at which to wear them. Yes, she liked all those very much. But the blinding, almost obscene luxury of the high aristocracy wasn’t her particular aspiration. She just wanted to live a middling life without any debts, and the fear of bailiffs and moneylenders’ toughs she would gladly say goodbye to.

But this many thousands? On top of their outstanding debt paid and an annuity apiece for life for her and Charlie? That was absurd. A woman would have to be a combination of Cleopatra, Delilah, Madame de Pompadour and the famous Mrs. Langtry in order to merit such bounty, and Beatrice hadn’t got time to learn but a thousandth of their tricks. She’d need access to all the under-the-counter books in Holywell Street and more for an education to match Ritchie’s extravagance.

I wonder if Sofia can provide me with a few tips?

It would be rather embarrassing quizzing her friend on such intimate topics, and even more so, revealing why she needed the knowledge, but after seeing Sofia’s performance last night in the conservatory, it was clear that the older woman was well versed in the sexual arts.

And then there was always Polly, who seemed to know everything about everything.

Despite these potential wells of wisdom, it was still going to be hard providing Ritchie with value for money. Especially when she was still technically a virgin—despite what had happened with Eustace—and her cavortings with Ritchie last night were the furthest extent of her amatory experience.

No, she’d have to insist on a lesser sum. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie was a lecherous manipulative rogue, but she still couldn’t bring herself to cheat him. She’d take only enough to pay off the debts that she and Charlie had incurred, and a modest sum to cover their needs while her brother found some kind of sensible paying employment that didn’t offend his gentlemanly sensibilities and where he couldn’t effect any further financial chaos. After that, a little extra to set herself up in a typewriting and secretarial concern for persons of quality.

Good. That’s a decision smartly made. How cool-headed I am in a crisis.

Beatrice narrowed her eyes. There was no doubt who the taller man was, but why on earth would he choose to resort to such subterfuge? Was he trying to discover secrets about her from the servants? Some further skeleton in her closet with which to exert additional leverage over her? That seemed very much his modus operandi.

But even if there was a skeleton, Polly wouldn’t reveal it. And neither would Cook nor Enid, she hoped, at least not deliberately. Unlike some ladies of her acquaintance, Beatrice always endeavored to treat the servants as well as she would like to have been treated herself in their situation. She even helped out with domestic chores as best she could now that the household was much reduced, and she hoped that her efforts to lighten the load offset Charlie’s occasional airs and graces.

So, Mr. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie, you’ll be disappointed if you’re hoping to find any scandalous morsels about me around the kitchen hearth. I’ve done nothing more wicked than I did with you last night! All my scandalous morsels are already fairly common knowledge.

“AND THEN SHOW the gentleman who seems to be in charge into the morning room, will you, Polly? And tell him I’ll be down presently.”

Fortified by tea, Beatrice prepared for the forthcoming confrontation. Part of her was nervous, part filled with a perverse and delicious longing. She’d soon have a lover, and by all accounts, one as skilled as he was handsome.

“The morning room, not the parlor?”

“The morning room will do. The parlor needs bottoming and it’s only for persons of quality anyway.”

That would show him. If it was him.

“And then shall I return to help you dress, miss?”

Beatrice groaned inside. The corset, the layers of petticoats, her hair … it would all take an age.

To the devil with it! And with him! He’ll see me in dishabille soon enough, and after last night, it’s far too late to stand on ceremony.

Those blue eyes, so well remembered, seemed to taunt her, and between her thighs, she imagined she felt his fingers. A sweet ache coiled and tightened in her belly.

“No, that won’t be necessary, Polly. I’ll receive him in my dressing gown. You just keep an eye on the friend. Have Cook and Enid gone out to the market yet?”

Polly nodded, her eyes popped wide, and Beatrice laughed inside. Her maid was usually unflappable, hard to shock.

“But, miss, it’s not seemly to receive a gentleman in your night attire. What would people say?”

“People? Pah! They already think I’m a hussy and a fallen women, so what difference does it make now? And I’ll be dismissing this fellow again within a few minutes. He won’t have time to be scandalized.” She tossed her hair, wondering what Mr. Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie would think of so much curly redness. Polite society considered such hair savage, too wild and abandoned, but she considered it her very best feature. “Now, about your business, Polly!”

The other woman lingered. She gave a pointed cough.

“Now what is it?” Beatrice hid another smile.

“Won’t you need chaperone, miss? I mean, an unmarried lady receiving a gent on her own … without her corset.” Polly’s eyes twinkled with the spark of a conspirator. “There’s some that might say that’s rather fast.”

“Ah, well, as I said, thanks to Mr. Eustace Lloyd, that famously loathsome and despicable cad, I am fast, Polly. Positively a Derby winner!” Beatrice shrugged. Her damaged reputation still should be considered a calamity, but all she felt was a delicious liberation. “So I might as well enjoy the freedom my speedy status affords me, eh? Now, off you go.”

“Yes, miss!” Hiding a smirk behind her hand, Polly darted from the room.

Now, as to her dressing gown? The old brown woolen one just wouldn’t do. Time to bring out the fine blue one, one of the last new things she’d purchased before their fortunes had turned to dust.

If a man was prepared to pay twenty thousand guineas for the use of her body for a month, the least a girl could do was wear her nicest dressing gown.

RITCHIE COULDN’T RELAX in the damask-upholstered wing chair. It was comfortable enough, and not the usual delicate ladies’ morning-room chair; but waiting, waiting, waiting, he couldn’t find ease in it.

What’s the matter with me? Why am I here like this, sneaking around and behaving like a youth in rut with his brains all addled by his first-ever sniff of a real, live woman?

What was it about Beatrice Weatherly that made him act this way? Despite the licentiousness of the photographs she’d posed for, his gut feeling was still that she was no jaded sophisticate. The women he kept company with were mainly society beauties with inattentive husbands, women eager to share his bed discreetly in return for pleasure and a release from the inherent boredom of the ever repeating Season.

But Beatrice Weatherly wasn’t jaded or bored or married, or even particularly sophisticated, and perhaps because of that, his yearning for her was out of all proportion. She had an elusive quality that spoke to his soul and tantalized his cock. Yet for the life of him he was hard-pressed to define it.

And as for pitching up here in mufti rather than gentlemanly finery? To show her he wasn’t really a toff at heart, he supposed. A self-made man who’d worked hard, like his father before him.

It was also easier to circumvent Beatrice’s ineffectual brother this way too. He’d nothing against the man, but his sister was worth twenty of him.

You’re a sly weasel, Ritchie my lad. Especially when it’s your cock that’s running the show.

Restless, he sprang to his feet, his body humming like an electrical dynamo. The room he’d been shown into by the shrewd-looking maid was pleasing enough, if a little faded and old-fashioned looking, due no doubt the Weatherly’s lack of funds to pay for elaborate furnishings and a sufficiency of servants. Prowling around, he sensed instinctively that this was Beatrice’s domestic domain, the room she spent most of her time in. He studied a number of bookshelves, which were less dusty than some of the furniture, and their eclectic contents surprised and inordinately pleased him. History, the classics, Mr. Darwin’s treatise and other scientific tomes—all these rubbed shoulders with a broad array of novels of high and low style, and notably, issues of the literary publication, Lippincott’s, all well thumbed. He had a feeling that Beatrice read across the entire spectrum of the arts and knowledge represented. He sensed a mind in her as curious as it was sharp.

The mantelpiece was crammed with photographs.

Experiencing a twist of guilt, he sought out the life of the quiet, sweet girl Beatrice must once have been before she’d taken to posing for pornographic images. Almost reluctantly, he scanned the frames, his heart athud.

Even in stiff formal poses, Beatrice exuded the same energetic sensuality that informed her nude studies. Perched on a chaise longue beside her brother, and in the company of an older couple, presumably the now deceased elder Weatherlys, she lit the composition with life and vitality. Even with a perfectly straight face, to Ritchie’s eyes, she seemed to smile.

He passed hungrily from image to image, devouring each glimpse of her. Here in a country house garden, in a white dress, hair down, breathtaking in her purity. Here, with enormous daring, in fancy dress and revealing her sleek thighs in what looked like her brother’s breeches.

And here … oh, here … with another man, in what looked like an engagement photograph. This time it was the lucky fellow who seemed barely able to hide his smiles, while Beatrice was a poem of fond affection.

Ritchie set the frame down with thump; his teeth were gritted and his chest tight. Why such irrational anger? Why so jealous of this lost fiancé? There had been men in her life since, surely, and yet he couldn’t seem to summon up much interest in them, or antipathy toward them. Even Eustace Lloyd, who was her most recent admirer, according to his sources, and a man with whom he was vaguely acquainted and for whom he didn’t much care.

Beatrice had been seen in public with Lloyd on one or two occasions before the photographs had surfaced, but not since. All very decorous, an exhibition or two, once at the theater. There was no sign of any lasting affection for him here though, no image amongst this collection, so whatever had passed between them was obviously over.

Frowning, Ritchie tapped his fingers on the shelf, thinking, thinking.

Gut instinct told him there’d been no intimacy with Lloyd. The man was personable enough, but there was something not quite pleasant about him, and he’d been suspected of theft at the Plenderley’s house party Ritchie had attended last year. Even though he barely knew her yet, Ritchie already credited Beatrice Weatherly with a discerning taste in the men to whom she gave herself.

And yet … who’d taken the nude photographs? He hadn’t asked Beatrice, and she’d offered no information of her own volition. Could it have been Lloyd? The man had certainly shown an unusually avid interest in cameras at the Plenderley shindig.

It was something Ritchie would have to look into, as a priority. He had agents and resources aplenty; it wouldn’t take long. There must be a good reason why a refined and spirited woman like Beatrice Weatherly had exposed her beautiful naked body to a nonentity like Eustace Lloyd.

Filing that thought away, he moved to the small piano in order to distract himself from uneasy speculation. It seemed odd that the instrument was in here, rather than one of the more formal rooms, but there was Chopin on the music stand, and various selections from Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan tucked beneath it, along with the sentimental “The Lost Chord.” Did Beatrice play? Most well-bred young women of her class did; it was one of the traditional accomplishments of marriageable young fillies. He pictured her slender, delicate fingers flowing over the ivories and jerked with raw desire, imagining the same dexterity on his cock.

Soon.

He was confident that she’d accept his offer. Not because he believed himself irresistible, but because he’d sensed pragmatism in her, and desire, and the hot spark of something less definable, but still intense. For his part, he’d suffered a coup de foudre, one might say, although emanating mainly, he owned, from regions far more southerly than the heart.

His cock ached as he rubbed his thumb and fingertip together compulsively. She’d been so wet and silky last night. Exquisitely responsive. Right there with him. No grim, tight, resisting miss she. No bitter disappointment to him after the promise of her beauty.

A familiar cloud nudged its way into his consciousness, but he shook his head, dislodging it. He would not think of that now—or of her—just when Beatrice Weatherly was about to appear. The only woman of his recent acquaintance who could truly make him forget.

As if answering his prayers, the doorknob rattled as it turned, and he spun around.

“Good morning, Mr. Ritchie. I didn’t anticipate seeing you again quite so soon.”

She was a vision, everything he remembered from last night, and much, much more.

“Good morning, Miss Weatherly.” Moving swiftly amongst the furniture, he strode toward her and snatched up her hand. The touch of her skin, so smooth and warm, expunged all darkness. “And why wouldn’t you expect me? Didn’t I say I’d have an offer for you this morning?” Like a voracious schoolboy let loose in a sweet shop, he let his eyes rove over her, unable to hide his sudden, surging desire.

Beatrice Weatherly took his breath away just as easily as she stiffened his cock.

His mouth pressed to the fingertips of her raised hand, Ritchie stared at her over her knuckles. Her brilliant hair was unbound save for a few constraining strands caught in a white ribbon at the back of her head, and she looked a fair demoiselle or an enchanted queen in a painting from the hand of Mr. Rossetti. Her magical curls tumbled and drifted like flame, heating his blood.

“Gentlemen … and those not quite so gentle … say a lot of things, Mr. Ritchie. And regrettably or otherwise, they don’t often mean them.”

At another moment, he might have frowned over her words and demanded to know who’d misled her—whether it be Lloyd or some other fellow—in order to thrash the living daylights out of him. But right now, his mental processes were too derailed by the need to catalogue her beauty, from head to toe, every dreamlike inch.

Daringly, Beatrice was wearing her dressing gown rather than her day clothes, and she was clearly uncorseted. Fabric of a rich blue shade lay closely against her delicate curves, hinting at the glorious form enclosed and compelling Ritchie to speculate on what was underneath the robe.

Was she wearing undergarments? Or a nightgown? Maybe a chemise? Or perhaps stockings only, with lacy froufrou garters and a flower garland embroidered down the seam?

Or perhaps she was naked, warm and velvety, his for the taking.

“Mr. Ritchie, may I have my hand back, please?”

Ritchie straightened in surprise, then laughed as he released her. She’d bewitched him so completely he’d fallen into a lust-drenched stupor of speculation, just from kissing the tips of her fingers.

“Of course, Miss Weatherly … or may I call you Beatrice, now we’re to be close? I see that we’ve dispensed with the customary chaperone for an unmarried lady.”

She stood away from him, gripping her fingertips at the exact place he’d kissed her. For a moment, he saw an image of feminine hands, nervous and agitated, attempting to rub away his touch, but Beatrice didn’t do that. Instead, it was as if she was folding her fingers around the kiss to seal it in.

“After last night, I’d say that the issue of my chaperon-age where you’re concerned has become redundant, Mr. Ritchie.” Her eyes flashed, and he couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or from desire. Perhaps it was both. “But even so, that doesn’t automatically indicate our continued closeness. I haven’t agreed to your proposal yet.”

Beatrice was a woman of medium height, but she had a towering quality about her as she stared at him. Her sharp eyes surveyed him as if he were a petitioning worm wriggling on the carpet at her slipper-clad feet. Fresh desire gouged Ritchie’s belly so hard he felt the urge to double over.

“But my friends call me Bea, so I suppose you can too.”

The concession came out of the blue, rocking him harder than the lust did.

“Bea,” he murmured. “I like that. Does it mean we might be friends?”

“It’s hard to know that yet, Mr. Ritchie. Or should I call you Edmund?”

“My friends generally just call me Ritchie …” He paused, watching patterns of assessment cross her face, sharp and wary, but bizarrely stimulating too. “So I suppose you can too.”

Then she laughed—a free, rich sound—and the tension between them snapped like an India rubber band. It didn’t dissipate entirely. No, there was still an edge in the air. But the atmosphere in the room was distinctly lighter.

“Touché, Mr … touché, Ritchie. So shall we sit down and discuss this ridiculous proposition of yours?” With a graceful gesture, she indicated the damask-covered chair he’d been sitting in, and its mate, facing it before the small, cheerful fire set against the early morning chill. “That is when you’ve first explained to me why you’ve arrived in this rather unorthodox manner. Sneaking around the tradesman’s entrance and dressing like a bookmaker or a pieman, rather than wealthy man of business.”

“I wanted you to see another side of me.” He plucked at the lapels of his commonplace houndstooth-checked suit. “See the blunt, plain man rather than the facade of Savile Row tailoring and society manners.”

She gave him a wry look, as if she did indeed see straight through him and any manner of subterfuge he chose to erect. “It must be a very peculiar society that encourages manners like yours, Ritchie.” She acknowledged his shrug with one of her own. “And I still consider your offer quite absurd.”

“Why so?”

Though he took care not to show it, Ritchie felt irrational disappointment. He understood her qualms, but still, the idea of not having her after all hit him like a rabbit punch. “I believe that it’s a generous offer, Bea, but I daresay I could be persuaded to parlay it a little further if you decree it insufficient.”

He watched as she slid her hand into a pocket in her dressing gown and pulled out both his letter, and another envelope, presumably her reply. It was a simple, artless, everyday action, completely without airs, but still his cock throbbed harder at the sight of it. In his imagination, he saw that same pale, beautiful hand sliding elsewhere; slipping inside the unbuttoned fly of his trousers, seeking his flesh.

What would her fingers feel like on his cock? Would they be cool and soothing? Or warm and tantalizingly heated?

Lord, I don’t care! I just want her to touch me!

“It’s absurd simply because it is so generous. Twenty thousand guineas is a disproportionate sum. Not to mention the debts covered, and the annual payment thereafter.” She looked away, sideways, a soft blush gathering on the apples of her cheeks. “I have no illusions as to my own value, Ritchie. I consider myself a gentlewoman, and I’m quite pretty, I think. But I’m just a woman like any other woman, when it comes down to it, with face and limbs and shape … and other parts—” the roses deepened “—and a month of my time is worth far less than twenty thousand.”

Was she toying with him? Angling like a practiced courtesan in a game of advance and retreat? Somehow, he thought not. Despite her recent notoriety and her avid response last night, the impression came again that the Siren of South Mulberry Street was relatively inexperienced. Was that the root of his obsession with her? A yearning to educate an eager acolyte into a new world of exotic bedroom games?

And she had been willing. It hadn’t been a mask, worn as some did, until it was too late.

Compressing his lips, he expunged the dark thoughts again and sought the light instead.

Beatrice Weatherly of the crimson hair, intelligent green eyes and sweet, uncorseted curves. Irresistible temptation in a softly fitted dressing gown.

“Let me be the judge of your value, Bea. I’m usually fairly shrewd in these matters and I always get my money’s worth.”

Those eyes widened into brilliant pools of jungle green, snapping with outrage. It was all he could do not to throw himself bodily at her and begin cashing in his investment right here in this pleasant little morning room. But instead, he held his hand out for the letters. “So, let’s see your counteroffer, shall we?”