the contrary, Arabella. I think I need to know a great deal more than that.’
‘What do you want me to tell you?’ she demanded bitterly. ‘How good a man Henry was?’
‘Infinitely better than me. You made that very clear.’ His eyes bored into hers.
‘He was a thousand times the man you are,’ she taunted.
‘You forget your position, Arabella.’
‘No,’ she said and tried to control the raggedness of her voice. She forced a tight smile to her mouth. ‘I understand my position exactly.’ She glared at him. ‘Do you want me in here? Perhaps on the sofa? Or on the rug before the fireplace? Shall I undress for you now?’ she demanded.
‘Arabella!’ he said harshly, but there was a flash of pain in his eyes that matched the pain in her heart.
And she realised that she was doing this all wrong, risking everything.
She closed her eyes, rallied her senses. ‘Forgive me,’ she said in her normal voice and when she opened her eyes she did not look at him.
‘Arabella,’ he said more softly.
But his kindness was worse than his contempt. It reminded her too much of the man she had loved.
‘What has happened to you?’
‘You already know the answer to that question,’ she said quietly.
‘No, Arabella, I do not.’ His eyes studied hers. ‘I wish that you would tell me.’
Her heart was knocking so hard against her ribcage that she was surprised he could not hear it.
‘All of it that happened across the years,’ he said.
She shook her head and forced a smile, trying to fool him.
His gaze did not waver.
‘In Mrs Silver’s, when you were pretending to be Miss Noir, you said that it was your first night there.’
‘A harlot’s lie. It is what men want to hear, is it not?’ She glanced away and pressed her fingers hard against her lips, hating the words she must say. But say them she would, for she did not want his pity. And she did could not risk his questions.
Dominic stood there still and silent.
‘Shall we go upstairs?’ She knew her part in all this, knew what he had come for. And once he had it, he would go and the ordeal would be over … at least for now.
He said not one word, but he followed her up the stairs to the large cream-coloured bedchamber on the first floor.
There could be no room for modesty, nor the last remaining shreds of her pride. She knew what was required, knew what she must do.
She turned away from him and forced herself to strip off her clothing, every last stitch. And when she was naked she sat down at the dressing table and took the pins from her hair, uncoiling its long length while her eyes watched his reflection in the looking glass. She watched while he slipped off his tailcoat and abandoned it over a chair. His waistcoat followed.
She sat there, waiting for the inevitable. Gathering her courage for what must come. But Dominic made no move towards her.
The nerves shivered right through her body. She swallowed. Did a mistress wait for her protector to come to her, or did he expect her to go to him? Arabella did not know the answer. But the quicker this was over, the better for herself. So she rose and walked to him. It took every ounce of Arabella’s strength not to wrap her arms around herself to cover her nakedness, to make herself stand there before him and let him look at her.
His touch, when it came, was gentle, reverent almost, and she shivered at the sudden flash of unbidden memories from a lifetime ago—of the passion and the love that had been between them.
He ran a hand over her hair, his hand sliding round to the nape of her neck. His fingers rested there light as a butterfly and the tingle beneath them seemed to run through the whole of her body. Slowly, deliberately, he trailed the tips of his fingers down the column of her throat.
Arabella deliberately masked any sign of emotion from her face as she stood there and let him touch her, angling her head to allow him access. He was her protector. This was what he was paying for. It meant nothing. But already she could feel the hard thud of her heart and everywhere his fingers touched, her skin burned, and she felt like weeping.
His hand dipped lower, so that she felt his fingers trace all the way out to the end of her collarbone and all the way back again. She tried to control the unsteadiness of her breathing, the gathering sob, but that only seemed to make it worse.
Not one word did he say. Not once did he meet her eyes, just kept his gaze fixed on the magic that his fingers were working.
He paused.
Arabella held her breath.
And then inch by tiny inch his fingers followed the path down into the valley between her breasts.
Again he halted, but whether it was to torture her, or himself, she did not know. If he continued like this, Arabella did not know if she could bear it. He placed a palm upon her left breast and beneath it she felt her heart jump and race all the harder. Beneath the cover of his hand her nipple was already taut and tender.
Arabella willed herself not to respond. He did not love her. She thought of all he had done six years ago. But when his palm slid away and his fingers teased at her nipple, plucking it, there was nothing she could do to prevent it bead all the harder. Her wantonness appalled her.
She squeezed her eyes closed to prevent the tears, knowing what would follow.
But his hand halted and dropped away, so that he was no longer even touching her.
Each tight line of his body and the bulge in his breeches revealed that he was every bit as aware as she of the tension that hummed between them. Slowly, his gaze raised to meet her own and there was something in his eyes as he stared at her. The strangest expression. Not lust as she had expected. Not victory or even arrogance. Realisation, maybe. And something else that she could not quite define. Something that looked almost haunted.
‘Dominic?’ she whispered.
But Dominic gave no sign of having heard her. He stood there frozen, staring as if he could see into the very depths of her soul.
And then he backed away, raking a hand through his hair as he did so.
‘I cannot …’ he said and his face was white. He turned away, gathered up his waistcoat and tailcoat and made for the door.
‘Dominic!’
He stopped where he was, hesitated with his hand stilled in its grip of the doorknob, but did not turn round.
And then he left, closing the door quietly behind him.
There was the tread of his boots upon the stairs, the murmur of voices in the hallway and, a short while after that, the sound of a carriage and horses outside.
Arabella watched the dark unmarked carriage drive away into the night. She shivered and pulled the shawl tight around her shoulders, not understanding what had just happened between them.
Dominic did not sleep for what remained of the night. He stood by the window of his library and looked out over the sleeping city and watched the dawn break over a charcoal sky.
He had been a fool to think that he could take Arabella as his mistress and use her as a whore, even if she was exactly that. The past was too strong between them. She might have slashed the ties that had bound them and walked away, but Dominic had only just come to see that what had bound them together could never be completely undone. She was his first and only love. And no matter what she had done, or what she had become, he could not forget that. Every time he looked at her it was flaunted before his eyes. Every time he touched her he felt it in his bones.
If