“Did you love me, James?”
“Of course I didn’t love you,” he said in exasperation. “That was understood.” He spied a figure at the bottom of the stairs. “Mary! Have you seen your governess?”
“She didn’t come down this way, Uncle James. What’s wrong with her?”
“Her hand is deeply cut.”
Mary clung to the banister. “She would use the back stairs, wouldn’t she?”
“You’re right, Mary,” he said in relief. “You and Walker go to the kitchens or to your rooms.”
“She didn’t mean to break the window, Uncle James,” she called up to him. But he didn’t respond.
Elora had already anticipated his next move, and hastened down the stairs to talk to Mary.
James wondered what was wrong with him. He might have felt more shocked at Elora’s admission had he not realized himself that even a sexual arrangement between them wouldn’t work. Thank God he had never slept with her. A steamy hour here and there, yes. But he needed a woman soon or he would lose his sanity. Not just any woman, either. Not for an uncomplicated affair.
He couldn’t simply seduce the governess, as much as he wanted to, because she wasn’t just any governess. He realized a solution existed, and he thought he was ready to explore it.
He had waited five years for the perfect woman. He could wait a little longer to repair the poor impression he had made. For now he could keep Ivy under his roof, his guard, and he saw no reason why she would resist him once he proved that he could be redeemed. There wasn’t any question of an “arrangement” with Ivy, except for the contract she’d signed. He was grateful for that, as devious as it sounded. She was bound to him for a year.
Neither of them was to blame for losing each other the first time. She’d come back into his life for a reason. He wanted her more than he had on the eve of war. But this wanting went deeper than anything he’d known. A half decade of waiting, lusting, and dreams hidden away for the right woman.
She wanted him, too.
All he had to do was to persuade her of the obvious.
Chapter 13
Ivy had no intention of remaining in the duke’s bed while he and his lover quarreled in the next room, even if—especially since—his lover was one of her oldest acquaintances. To be fair, Ivy couldn’t accuse the duke of pushing Elora onto the path of ruin. Obviously, however, he had led Elora further astray.
But their affair wasn’t any of Ivy’s business. Furthermore, from what Ivy could glean from their conversation, the duke’s brother had played a pivotal role in Elora’s life. Had he been at the masquerade ball on the night that Ivy’s world had collapsed? She found that she couldn’t remember. One man’s kiss had taken precedence over everything else that evening, except her father’s disgrace and subsequent death.
It was possible that the same fate could have befallen Elora, too. Until now Ivy had always thought that she and her sisters had been singled out for their wretched destiny.
The moment she sensed that the duke wasn’t watching, she slipped from the bed, drawing up the covers as neatly as she could, and sneaked into the hall.
She’d taken only four steps toward the staircase before he emerged from another door and strode forward, his frown so wrathful she froze in her tracks.
“How dare you disobey me,” he said. “Do you realize that you could faint and fall down the stairs from the amount of blood you’ve lost?” And he swept her up once again in his arms.
Ivy could well have fainted, but more from the sinful thrill of those wonderful arms embracing her than from any loss of blood. Besides, her fate was sealed. Elora had left the sitting room to close ranks in case Ivy made another attempt to escape. That seemed an impossibility considering the physician loomed at the bottom of the stairs, looking harried and self-important.
How strong James was. She let her cheek rest against his shoulder. “This is very heroic of you.”
“Isn’t it?”
Her hip brushed his groin with every stride he took. Heroic and hard, she thought. “I’ve failed as a governess already.”
“Those children could take down an entire army.” He paused outside his bedchamber doors, boosting her up higher in his arms. “When I saw you sitting in the windowsill like that, I admit I felt—well, I don’t want to ever feel like that again.”
And she wanted to feel his arms around her forever and make him forget any other woman existed.
* * *
Night had settled over the house and things were finally quiet. Ivy heard the rustle of unfamiliar sheets and felt a weight across her ribs. No. She didn’t want to remember what had happened with the children and the shattered window.