He sat beside her.
"I didn't deserve that from you," she said, steadying her voice. "You didn't say a single nice thing to me. Not even one. I may not have behaved like a lady, but neither were you a gentleman. I think they treat doxies with some respect."
"You did not behave like a doxy."
Mia's gut clenched. "Yes, I did. There's nothing you or I can do to change that. I have-I have a part of me that I loathe, but I will spend the rest of my life taking control of these disgusting urges. I vow it."
He flinched at her words; then his hands clamped on her arms and he lifted her straight into his lap.
Mia gave a startled yelp. "Let go of me! Just because I'm small doesn't mean you can keep moving me about like a doll."
It felt good to be in the circle of his arms, though.
"There was nothing disgusting about what we did." His voice was firm and unwavering. "And you are beautiful, not loathsome."
Mia would have snorted, but she remembered just in time that ladies don't snort.
"I behaved like an ass afterward," he said. "I just- I'm not used to feeling that way while bedding a woman."
"‘Bedding!'" Her voice was bitter. "That would imply we got as far as a bed. I wasn't even worth a pair of sheets."
He gave her a gentle shake. "I was overcome. We both were. And Duchess, I've never been that mad for anyone. Any woman. Ever."
Mia's heart missed a beat.
"When it comes to refinement, I'm an ass," Vander said. "I didn't bother to learn ballroom etiquette and the rest of it. But I have never found myself so overcome by lust that I couldn't even get to a bed. You turn me into a madman. That's the truth, if you care to hear it."
An involuntary shudder ran through Mia. His arm tightened, pulling her head against his shoulder.
"I feel that way now," Vander told her, his voice low and gruff. "I just had you, and all I want is to take you again. I could do it on the floor or in that bathtub. I see you, and I want to get close. I smell you, and I want to taste. I taste you, and the only thing I want is to shove myself inside and ride you until you scream with pleasure."
Mia's entire body turned liquid at his words and she couldn't find an answer.
"If you think I have ever spoken to any woman the way I spoke to you," he continued, "you'd be mistaken. I may not prance around like a court dandy, but I'm a decent man. I have paid for my pleasures because I don't like adultery and I don't-I didn't-want to marry. But I have always been courteous. I've never behaved like a lunatic, not until I met you."
Mia closed her eyes. She didn't know what to think.
"Four nights won't be enough," he said, his voice rasping.
She struggled to keep up with what he was saying. "What?"
"This is some sort of erotic madness." He hesitated. "I think it will burn out. I don't want you to . . . I don't want you to fall in love with me again, because I'll end up hurting you."
"I won't," she said swiftly. "Do you think I could love anyone who would treat me this disrespectfully?" It was a lie. She loved him so much that she ached with it. But she couldn't let him know. She couldn't.
He would walk away, leaving her devastated. But at least if he didn't know how she felt, she could keep the humiliation to herself.
His hand stroked her arm. "I know it can be hard for women to keep their feelings separate when they're making love."
Was he feeling sorry for her? Again? Mia straightened and glared at him. "Vander, there is nothing that could get me to fall in love with you after what happened years ago at that musicale, let alone your coarse behavior this morning."
"That's good," he said immediately. Still, she could tell that he believed he was so irresistible that she would fall for him anyway.
"I have been in love," she told him, keeping her gaze unwavering.
"I know that." His thumb rubbed across her lip. "You've been biting it again. Your bottom lip has turned the color of a ripe strawberry."
"Not with you. That was a silly infatuation, and I was only a girl. I hardly knew you."
His thumb stopped.
"My fiancé, Theodore Edward Braxton Reeve, courted me for a year and we were betrothed for another year. I knew him very well-and I fell in love with him." She wasn't precisely telling the whole truth, but it didn't matter.
A dark emotion flashed through his eyes. "You still love the man who jilted you?"
Mia ignored that question. It was none of his business, and he would like her answer too much. "Edward is brilliant, handsome, and very kind. He is a professor at Oxford, and he knows your friend Thorn. In fact, I believe Mr. Dautry bought a machine of some sort from him."
"The patent for a machine," Vander said slowly. "I remember now that Reeve was the man who designed a continuous paper-making machine. Thorn made a fortune on it."
"As did Edward," Mia said, a trace of pride appearing in her voice, even though the last thing she should do is feel pride for the man who had jilted her.
Vander's hand slid down to her throat, an indescribably soft caress. "I find it harder and harder to believe that he left you at the altar."
Was it worse to say cutting things to her, as Vander did, or to leave her, as Edward had done? Mia cleared her throat. "My point is that you needn't worry that I will become infatuated with you, simply because you made love to me against the wall of the stable. If that is the right word for what we did."
"It is not." He leaned down and whispered a different word in her ear.
Mia felt herself turning bright red. "You mustn't use that word in my presence, let alone to me."
"It's part of the madness I fall into when you're around me," Vander said, his voice rasping. "I want you, Duchess. I want you so badly that I'm having trouble thinking even right now. You're telling me that you are still in love with that miserable son of a bitch you were betrothed to, and I'm sorry about that. All the same, the only thing I want to do is lie down and pull you on top of me."
On top? Mia gave that a second's thought before returning to the subject at hand. "You see my point, don't you? You needn't worry that I will fall in love with you."
"Because of Reeve."
"Edward broke my heart."
His thumb swept along her chin, and he said, "I hate to hear that, Duchess."
"Yes, well . . ." She suddenly realized exactly what she was feeling under her bottom.
"Has anyone ever told you that you have the most luscious arse in all Christendom?"
"No." She shifted her weight, just to see that flare of dark lust in his eyes.
"I'm starting to get the idea that you have no idea what effect you have on men."
Mia stopped wiggling. "I have no effect on men. And I don't want you to pay me compliments that you don't mean." She cleared her throat. "That-what we did earlier-it wasn't ladylike. But on the other hand, it was real. It hurt to be characterized the way you did, but I can see that the truth is preferable to insincere flattery."
He frowned down at her. "I would have complimented you, but lust had such a grip on my throat that I couldn't do more than pant."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't start making what's between us into some sort of romance. Or flattering me. I know what you think of me."
His arms tightened again. "How can you know what I think of you?"
Mia put his arm aside and pushed herself to her feet. She had to get this straight. It was bad enough when he lashed out, calling her greedy.
But it would be worse if he started whispering things he didn't mean. That would endanger her heart. She might begin to believe him.
"There's no need to fuss," she said, giving him a big smile. "See? I'm fine. I'm not crying. There's no need to flatter me."
He stood up. And up. He was so tall, compared to her. She folded her arms over her breasts and looked at him. "I shall see how Charlie is. After I wash my face and change my gown, that is."
"Perhaps we should retire to a bed and celebrate our newfound truce," Vander suggested.
Mia felt as if she had been torn apart that morning and clumsily put back together. Not just physically, either. She shook her head.
Vander paused, a frown on his face, as if he guessed how battered she felt. She summoned up another smile. "Perhaps, if you're very, very lucky, I'll request the second of your four nights soon."
He pulled her into his arms. "I'm amending the agreement."
"Oh?" Mia discovered that she was trembling all over. Being enveloped in Vander's arms, against his hard chest, was enough to make her want to moan.