Her Mystery Duke(39)
What had almost happened…
Damn it. He had almost spilt inside her.
Coming here had been a mistake. A lapse in good judgment caused by too much liquor and too many sleepless nights. Now he could see that he really just wanted an excuse to see her. It was the worst sort of self-indulgence. A total breakdown of all his self-control.
He took the sheet and wiped the head of his cock. Then he arose. Good God, his clothes were spread over the floor, hopelessly wrinkled. It was already morning and yet he’d have to go home and change clothes. He kept a fresh jacket to exchange for his evening jacket at his office but he didn’t have any clean, pressed shirts there. He would be late for all his appointments.
He didn’t like sudden, unplanned changes to his daily schedule.
He began pulling the cold, wrinkled shirt on and then donned his pantaloons. It was too damned cold in here. The least he could do was light her hearth before he went. But when he walked to the tinderbox, he found only a few sticks.
He looked up. Jeanne stood near the window, bathed in the gray, muted light of the overcast morning. “What’s this, Jeanne? Don’t you even have firewood?”
She paused in the act of wiping herself with a linen towel. “There’s wood in there.”
“It’s kindling.”
“It shall take me through tonight, and tomorrow I expect to get paid for some of my stories.”
“What about today?”
She crawled back into her bed. Her golden hair fell over her shoulders in a swinging profusion of untamed curls. Her lush, pink tipped breasts bounced in a seductive show. A tug of lust pulsed through his cock at the sight. He could so easily lose himself for days with her. He had not felt like this about any woman for years. Maybe never. Definitely never. Not even Thérèse.
The last thought left him shaken.
Yes, he was that foolish over this girl.
“I shan’t light the fire today.” She said this as if it were a perfectly viable option.
He blew his breath and watched the vapor plume develop. “You can’t go without a fire.”
“David, I am used to it. I wear woolen clothes, extra socks.”
“You weren’t dressing like that when I was here before.”
“I spent extra firewood because the chamber needed to be warm for you. You were sick. But you paid me for that, remember?”
“Yes, I do remember.” There was a tightening in his guts and all because he was thinking now about what would happen if she weren’t able to attain enough money from her stories for firewood. Would she freeze herself?
Or would she find herself forced to lay with someone?
The thought of her giving not only that luscious young body but also her sweetness of self to another filled him with a clammy nausea. He reached into his pockets and retrieved all the money he had on his person.
Why didn’t he carry more money?
He tossed the lot on the bed. The coins jangled and bounced upon the sheet.
“What’s that?”
“It’s for you.”
She scooped up the money and threw it at him. “Take it back!”
He looked down at several coins spinning upon the floor. “What the devil, Jeanne? You’ve let men pay you before.”
“Yes, well, I don’t want you to pay me for it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t.”
He bent and retrieved the money then tossed it back to the mattress.
She crossed her arms. “I won’t take it.”
“Take it.”
“I won’t be your whore.”
“You’re not my whore. We’re lovers and I gave you a gift.”
She was staring at the money. She looked so sad. “I am at a very low ebb.”
“I can see that, Jeanne. Hence my gift.”
“I have been trying not to rely on men.”
“It is a hard world for a young, unmarried woman.”
Her eyes were wide, focused on the money as if she were transfixed. She compressed her lips. “I don’t like being cold. I don’t like when my skin itches and I cannot stop shivering. I do not like stale bread and old cheese.”
He walked to the bed and cupped her face. God, he adored her face. Had there ever been a more perfectly pretty girl? Her face should be painted and captured for all time. If she were truly his, he would carry her miniature inside his pocket watch. Then her likeness could sweeten the sourest of his days.
She looked up at him. “Don’t be so proud, not with me. Take the money. Buy yourself firewood and food.”
“I may soon get an advance from my publisher. If he likes the last story I wrote then he will publish the lot of my completed stories into a leather-bound volume. He said he would give me an advance.”