Mary Balogh: The Ungrateful Governness

"I see," he said. "Your options are alarmingly few, are they not, my dear?"

"I am not worried," she said, lifting her chin and looking him in the eye. "Something will turn up."

"Probably," he agreed. "In fact, Miss Moore, I am in a position to offer you employment that is well paid and would place you in a positon of some security and some comfort."

Her eyes widened. She had an alarming feeling of deja vu .

"I do not believe you would regret the decision to become my mistress," the Earl of Rutherford said.

During the silent seconds that succeeded Lord Rutherford's words, Jessica mentally rejected the temptation to feign shock or outrage. She was not shocked. Indeed, she found now that the suggestion was out in the open, that she had been half expecting it. Not perhaps the request that she become his mistress. No, she had not given any thought to that. But she had been expecting, at however unconscious a level, that he would invite her to share his bed that night. Why else would he have summoned her to this private parlor? Out of the natural kindness of his heart?

Perhaps the only aspect of the matter that did surprise Jessica was her realization that she had also been weighing the idea in her mind. Would she stay with him? Would she renounce the principles of behavior and morality by which her whole life had been guided thus far for the sake of one night's comfort and pleasure? The alternative filled her with dread. The prospect of climbing the ladder to the attic in order to share the maid's bed was becoming more impossible to contemplate. And doubtless she would have the girl's insolence to contend with, especially after she had spent the evening in a gentleman's private parlor.

Why subject herself to such indignity when she could spend the night in the arms of a man with whom she really wished to stay? She was four and twenty already and had never been closer to a man's embrace than that smacking kiss under the mistletoe and a few somewhat more lingering but very chaste embraces from a childhood sweetheart before he discovered that marriage to her would not be socially wise. She did not want to go through life without discovering what it felt like to be with a man.

Then why not with the man she wished to be close to? The man who had told her only the previous night that he liked to give pleasure as well as to take. There was, of course, all the immorality of lying with a man who was not her husband. But what had morality gained her? A lonely, unfriendly journey to London, where no one awaited her and where there was no prospect of security, that was what.

And he was offering her the chance to make the comfort of this night a long-term arrangement. He wished to make her his mistress. He would take care of her. She would not have to worry about where she was to live, what she was to eat, where she was to find employment. It seemed incredible to Jessica that she could be seriously considering his proposal, but she was nonetheless.

Rutherford was looking across the table at her, a half-smile on his lips. "I find your silence encouraging," he said. "It really would not be a bad life, Miss Moore. I would provide you with a comfortable home, servants, a carriage. All your needs would be supplied. And your duties would not be arduous. Merely to please me. I believe you would not find that difficult to do. And I am vain enough to believe that you would not find the task unpleasant on your own account."

"I wish for honest employment, my lord," Jessica said, but she realized even as she spoke that her protest lacked conviction.

"And being my mistress would be dishonest?" he asked, his eyebrows raised so that he looked again as haughty as he had when he first entered the room.

"I have been brought up to believe so," she said.

"It is easy for the wealthy and secure to talk of morality, Miss Moore," he said. "I hate to bring brutal reality to your attention, my dear, but I believe you are face to face with it. Do you realize that if you refuse my offer it is very likely you will find yourself within the next week facing the choice of walking the streets or starving?"

Jessica had indeed thought of the possibility, though she did not suppose that if matters came to that crisis she would have the courage or the willpower to maintain the stubborn independence that had sustained her through the previous two years.

"Come, Miss Moore," Lord Rutherford said, removing his arm from the table and rising to his feet, "will you be my mistress?"

"Yes, I will, my lord," Jessica heard herself say.

"Splendid!" He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a manner that quite turned her heart over. He strode around the table and held out a hand for one of hers. "I promise you will not be sorry, Miss Moore. What is your given name?"

"Jessica," she said, and she placed her hand in his and rose to her feet. It was a large, strong hand. She felt an inner twinge of panic.

"Jessica," he said, smiling again. "Jess. It suits you. Not in your present guise, of course. Does your hair not pain you, dragged back from your temples so ruthlessly? It is beautiful hair. Let me see it as it was last night."

He did not wait for her response. He lifted his hands and began to remove the pins that held her hair into its prim bun. His hands were gentle and surprisingly deft. Jessica fixed her eyes on the top button of his waistcoat and stood very still until she felt her hair cascade down around her face and against her back.

"Now you look like a Jess," he said, "and will do so even more when I have clothed you in pretty gowns. Never gray again, my dear. And certainly never that hair knot. You do not have to disguise yourself ever again, Jess Moore."

His fingers were combing through her hair. Jessica looked up into his face again. Her father had always called her Jess. No one else ever had. Indeed, for the past two years no one had even called her Jessica.

And then he bent his head and kissed her. Very gently and unthreateningly. His hands were loosely twined in her hair. Only his lips touched her. But Jessica felt as if everything inside her changed places with everything else. This was it, then. She had said yes. She was going to be his mistress. She was allowing him to call her familiarly by name, to touch her. She was committed. She could not now object to anything he chose to do with her.

And what was more, she thought, as his hands moved to cup her face and his lips parted over hers, she did not want to. She knew that soon he must begin to touch her body. She knew that she would be taken through to the bedchamber, that he would unclothe her and lay her on the bed. And she knew that there she would make the final commitment that would forever remove her from the ranks of virtuous women, that would forever brand her fallen.

And she did not care. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted the unknown rites that would take place in the bedchamber. She wanted them over and done with so that she need not be plagued with further doubts. And she wanted them taking place now, here and now, because she knew, even without his having said so, that he would give her pleasure, that the events of the next minutes would be the most exciting of her whole life.

His hands did move down after a few moments, over her shoulders, to her full breasts, to her small waist and the curve of her hips. Jessica's heart beat so painfully that she thought she must faint.

"What a very effective disguise indeed," he murmured against her lips, "this gray sack, Jess. You have the shape of a goddess, my dear."

He spread his hands behind her hips as he looked down into her eyes and brought her slowly to him. She bit her lower lip and looked back at him as his hands slid up her back, bringing her fully and intimately against his body.