Marrying the Mistress. Juliet Landon

to point out the undesirable nature of what you call the Abbots Mere crowd, perhaps I may be allowed to voice similar concerns about your dubious connections. Not quite the kind of thing Jamie ought to know about. You entertained young Solway for a few months, I believe, as well as Standish’s middle son. What’s his name? Bertrand, is it?’

      ‘For money, my lord,’ I snapped. ‘I was obliged to sell myself.’

      ‘Ah, of course. For money. Well then, you need hardly be too concerned about visiting Abbots Mere with my ward, since none of the women who stay there are ever paid a penny. They do it voluntarily.’

      ‘In which case, then, one would expect to see the place swarming with your other little wards. That part must cost you a small fortune.’

      ‘No!’ he said, picking up a porcelain plate from the mantelshelf and looking at the back. ‘You and Jamie are the only ones to cost me anything.’

      ‘How sad. That’s something I can easily fix, my lord.’ Boiling, churning, seething with anger at being outmanoeuvred, I gulped down the rest of my venom in a pointless threat that meant nothing at all, since there was no way in which I could fix it, except permanently.

      Looking back on it later, I suppose that’s what he thought I meant, for when I moved towards the door again, thinking only to get away from the haunting place, he slammed it shut before I could reach it, catching me like a silly sheep against the wall.

      ‘Admit it or not, lady, as you please,’ he said, but no more than that before he pushed my head on to his shoulder and brought his mouth down to cover mine, making me forget what it was I was not admitting, and a lot more besides.

      He must have known…oh, yes…he must have known how much of that night I remembered. He must have known too how desperately I needed comfort instead of conflict and how much I would have preferred matters to go my way, for a change. He must have known, with Linas no longer to care or be cared for, that I felt both free and guilty, grieved and confused and not as well organised as I pretended to be. So I half-expected his kiss to taste of revenge after our session of deliberate wounding, our first close contact in all those difficult years. I thought he was about to put me, finally, in my place.

      But it was not like that, not bitter, but meant, I think, to remind me of the magical beauty of that night without words, passionate but tender too, wanting, taking and giving. Predictable was not the way to describe Burl Winterson, yet I could taste the hunger in his kisses that roamed slowly across my lips, and I felt the desire in his hard arm across my shoulders, the soft hand holding my face. Feel, taste, scent…ah, yes…the scent was there too. Moorland. Fresh linen. Trees after rain. How could I not be reminded?

      He must have heard the moan, faintly, in my throat.

      ‘You’re right,’ he whispered, ‘about not being a good liar. I think we’d both better stick to the truth in future. And let us get another thing straight before we leave. You and Jamie will continue to live under my protection on Blake Street without any more argument. You will bring him to visit me and you will both accept my authority as you did with Linas. I do not need to remind you again whose son he is.’

      ‘And I suppose the next thing will be that you’ll expect him to call you Papa, will it?’ I said, trying to stiffen in his embrace, and failing.

      ‘That’ll come too. One thing at a time.’

      Squirming out of his arms, I steadied myself against the blue-flocked wallpaper. ‘I was being sarcastic,’ I said, pettishly. ‘I have no intention of giving you that satisfaction. And what is it I’m to admit, or not, as I please?’

      ‘That you’ve met your match, at last. Now, where are these other things of yours? Come and show me.’

      Chapter Four

      No expectations, I had said, choosing not to hear the unreality of such a boast. But it was not true. I had