That day, he’d come after her in a rage.
She’d been desperate. Running for her dear life. Knowing she couldn’t fail. She’d recognised the sympathy on Thomas’ face that day. And the desire.
Well, she’d been dressed as the veriest of doxies. Who could blame him for any mistaken assumptions?
She couldn’t bear to tell him the truth of her past outright. She couldn’t take the chance of increasing the disdain he must feel for her. What did the circumstances matter? She was just as unclean no matter if the choice had truly been hers or not.
She’d been a whore. A dirty whore.
Goodman Thomas Marlowe. Goodman. As if the damned Puritans held some special innate goodness others could never attain. Well, of course they saw it that way. Their religion centred on the sanctimonious notion.
That religion, his devotion to its principles and practice, made him completely unattainable to a woman like her. He always held a wistful, removed quality in his eyes as if he were consumed by some long remembered and perhaps deliciously savoured pain.
But tonight was very different.
His large, heavy-lidded, green eyes glimmered with something earthy and very intimate and they were focused lower than her neck.
She glanced down.
Her nipples were pointed peaks against the thin material. Her shift! No wonder he stared! Dizziness swept over her, her head growing light, as if it might float away. Dear God. She was dressed only in her shift. No matter how fascinating she found the contours of his powerful body, how could she have forgotten, even for a moment?
She ought to feel shame. She ought to cover herself and run away and pretend this was all a dream.
He kept looking at her with those gorgeous green eyes. Looking at her as if he would never stop. Could never stop.
Triumph at her power took her breath. Energy surged through her body like fire blazing up a piece of kindling. Verve that couldn’t be suppressed. She resumed swaying, allowing her feminine instinct complete possession.
He fixed his gaze on her lower body. His eyes widened. Darkened.
She knew the look of a man’s lust.
God, he was hers. Totally hers.
And this was likely her last chance ever to know him like this. Maybe fate itself had created this moment of magical moonlit opportunity.
For hours, she’d tossed in sweat-soaked sheets. She’d told herself it was owing to the excessive heat, the worst summer’s heat she had known in her life. As the clock had chimed midnight, wind had rustled the curtains. The first cooling breeze New Balcombe had seen in days had compelled her to come outdoors.
However, she couldn’t lie to herself. One thing and one thing only had dominated her thoughts and kept her from sleeping.
In two weeks, Thomas would leave for Harvard College. He was leaving…
The only man she had ever wanted—yes, it must be admitted, the only man she had ever loved—was about to walk out of her life. Maybe forever.
She would never know his kiss, his touch.
You could have him, here tonight, if you wanted him. No one shall ever know…
A little seduction. That was all it would take. She swayed her hips and shoulders in a motion as if she were a helpless willow caught in a breeze. Submissive to the forces of nature.
Always before, in the theatre, she had danced before a large audience. She’d never liked acting or dancing on stage. She’d been so young when she started, terrified of making a misstep in front of so many people. People who might pelt her with rotten fruit and worse. She taken herself to a place deep inside and pretended that she danced alone.
But now she was not alone. She was exceedingly aware of Thomas Marlowe. Aware of her effect on him. Her nipples drew tight, straining against the fabric of her bodice as she moved. Wetness flowed from her sex.
She’d known many men and it hadn’t been her choice. But Thomas was her choice. She had wanted him for so very long.
And tonight he wanted her too—this cold, impossibly remote man wanted her.
She stole a glance over her shoulder. He stood there, watching her as if he were transfixed.
She laughed, the low, throaty sound alien to her ears. Dear heaven, what was he waiting on? It had taken far less for the gentlemen in London to jump at her mother backstage.
Well, as a former actress, she certainly knew how to play the seductress.
“Goodman Marlowe.” She let her tongue caress the name and paused, while holding his gaze steadily. “Always devout, always good. Too good to take what he wants.”
She cupped her breasts, lifting and pushing them together, making them appear fuller. His focus of attention fell. She laughed again.
His jaw tightened. “Mistress Abramson, don’t.”
She drew her brows together in an expression of exaggerated sympathy and shook her head slowly. “Too good to take what he wants…even if his quarry wants to be taken?”