The Outrageous Belle Marchmain. Lucy Ashford

only son, Charles, had been so rich he was able to choose a bride from the aristocracy, but his well-born wife—pushed into the marriage by her parents—had thoroughly despised her low-born husband and after producing two male heirs she’d embarked on a string of affairs.

      Adam had spent a good deal of his childhood trying to protect his young brother, Freddy, from their mother’s promiscuity and their weak father’s rages. Both parents had died years ago, and Adam felt not the slightest desire to emulate their unhappiness; hence his custom of keeping suitable mistresses to satisfy his own male desires.

      He treated them generously, but always Adam made the terms quite clear: ‘This ends when I say it ends. Afterwards, if we happen across each other in society, we will acknowledge each other civilly. No more and no less.’

      Most of his former mistresses knew better than to cause him any trouble; Lady Farnsworth, his latest, had been an exception. Adam had quickly wearied of the elegant widow’s clinging possessiveness and her withering contempt for any suspected rivals.

      The trouble was, he hadn’t yet chosen himself another woman for his bed. Usually they were either widows or amicably separated from their husbands and the choice was plentiful. But no one had tempted him to make an offer, since …

      Since he collided with this little minx, who’d insulted his name to high heaven one March afternoon on Sawle Down.

      The realisation struck him like a thunderbolt. No. He couldn’t have held back from singling out a new chère amie because he was thinking of Belle Marchmain. It was damned impossible! But …

      She’d come here to ask him a very big favour, but her plans—so far—had come crashing round her pretty ears. Now he looked at her again as she furiously picked up the last bits of his model from the floor.

      Her straw bonnet had fallen off and her glossy raven curls were tumbling around the slender column of her neck. ‘There! That’s all of it!’ she breathed, putting two more pieces defiantly on the table. Her face had become a little flushed. ‘Whatever you call it,’ she added rather darkly, her hands on her hips.

      Mrs Belle Marchmain looked delectable. Her pink silk jacket had fallen apart, and the brightly patterned gown that fitted so snugly to her bosom and tiny waist almost made him smile.

      What would she be like in bed? If she was, as Jarvis suggested, well practised in the erotic arts and open to offers, it might be interesting to find out …

      ‘And—and you can stop looking at me like that!’

      Her rebuke shocked him out of his reverie and Adam stopped smiling. ‘You were asking about the model you almost destroyed,’ he said. ‘It’s a miniature of a Newcomen steam engine. And that’s not quite it, Mrs Marchmain. You came to me with a problem. And I think I might have the solution.’ He’d propped his lean hips against the sideboard and watched her with cool, assessing eyes.

      Belle suddenly felt that the room was too small. Either that or this formidable man was too close. Something tight was squeezing her lungs. ‘Let me tell you now that Edward will never sell more of the estate to you and I wouldn’t ask him to. It’s his heritage!’

      ‘But of course,’ answered Adam imperturbably. ‘And your brother shouldn’t be expected to dirty his hands for a living as so many men—and women—do.’ She swallowed. ‘I also imagine,’ he went on in the same calm voice, ‘that most of the rest of his estate is entailed. You want me to drop charges against your brother for stealing my livestock, don’t you? Well, I certainly require payment. And as to what that payment shall be, I have the perfect answer. I think you do as well.’

      What? Belle paled. ‘I—I thought perhaps we could come to some arrangement, for Edward to pay his debts off gradually …’

      His lip curled. ‘Impossible, I’m afraid. But I still see no reason, Mrs Marchmain, to dismiss the obvious solution.’

      So frozen did she look that her lips could clearly scarcely frame the words. ‘What exactly are you suggesting, Mr Davenant?’

      ‘Let’s be clear. You surely realise you have only one thing you can offer in payment of your brother’s debts,’ Adam said softly. ‘Yourself. Be my mistress.’

       Chapter Five

      Belle felt, in that instant, as if all the breath had been squeezed from her lungs. Lord Jarvis’s insults had made her feel sick. This man made her feel as if the safety of her world had been rocked to its foundations.

      Be my mistress.

      He was just watching her, leaning back against the sturdy oak sideboard with his arms folded across his broad chest. The candlelight fell on his cropped dark hair, on his sleepy grey eyes, on his hateful, sternly handsome face. And her pulse was skittering with the unsteadiness of a new-born colt.

      The way he was looking at her. Assessing her, damn him. She felt his presence in the pit of her stomach and her dry mouth. She couldn’t look at him without tingling anew at the sight of his powerful figure: those heavily muscled shoulders, his broad chest tapering down to slim hips and powerful thighs … Oh, just his being near her made the air difficult to breathe.

      His mistress. How dare this man make such a proposition? How dare he? Yet—oh, goodness, she’d been an arrogant idiot to come here. Straight into the lion’s den, armed only with her own stupid defiance—and her brother’s lies. She bent to rather shakily pick up her fallen bonnet; how ridiculous its gaudiness seemed now.

      She remembered how she’d felt when her husband died and the enormity of the debts she’d faced. Remembered how she’d stood her ground against Lord Jarvis—only, dear God, this man was far more dangerous than Jarvis.

      When she eventually spoke her words were, to her, miraculously steady. ‘To be perfectly honest, Mr Davenant,’ she replied, ‘I’m not quite sure whether your—offer is intended as a deliberate insult or a very poor joke.’

      He shrugged. ‘It’s neither. There happens to be a vacancy.’

      ‘But I thought you already had a mistress …’ She clamped her mouth shut. You stupid fool, Belle. She shouldn’t have shown the slightest interest. Yet she couldn’t help but hear, in her shop, the gossip of the ton. Couldn’t help but know that Adam Davenant attracted the attentions of the most beautiful women in London.

      His dark eyebrows had already arched in amusement. ‘So you take an interest in my affaires, do you? Then you should be aware that my latest companion and I have recently parted company.’

      Belle returned his smile, sweetly. ‘She has had a lucky reprieve.’

      He laughed. He actually laughed. ‘I wish you’d tell her so.’ His voice was silky. ‘I thought I was making you quite a reasonable offer. I would provide you, of course, with a London house and an income, so I do wish you’d stop acting like some virgin schoolgirl, Mrs Marchmain.’

      She let out a sharp breath. ‘I’m merely, as a woman of the world, trying to assess what you would gain from such an arrangement. You’ll understand I find it hard to believe you are suggesting this out of any kind of—of liking.’

      He shrugged. ‘I’m rather bored with women who think I’m the answer to all their prayers.’

      ‘So tedious for you, I’m sure!’

      He nodded. ‘A little, yes.’ Belle gritted her teeth. ‘I think,’ he went on blithely, ‘that you, on the other hand, would enter the kind of relationship I’m suggesting with a refreshing honesty. And of course your weakling brother’s error regarding the sheep would be forgiven—’ He stopped. He suddenly noticed that she was trembling. ‘Is something wrong, Mrs Marchmain?’

      ‘You thought I came here to—to bargain with you.’

      ‘And didn’t you?’

      ‘Yes!