Sophia James - Society's Beauties - Mistress at Midnight / Scars of Betrayal

An error! She had made a huge error for the green-gold in his eyes was changed into dangerous amber, any civility still evident simmering under darkness.

‘Surely we are adult enough to realise that the world is often not exactly as it might seem, my lord, and that there are times when the expedience of opportunity might serve us both. I am not an inexperienced green girl, you understand, and you are a man, no doubt, who has enjoyed the company of women.’ It was all she could dredge up in the awkward silence, though when he motioned for her to stop she saw that she had lost him.

‘The act of loving between a woman and a man is badly done when it is linked so precisely to dishonour, Mrs St Harlow.’ His hand shook more than it usually did and he jammed it into his pocket away from notice.

‘These might be fine words, Lord Hawkhurst, when one has the choice of exploring different options.’ Fury crept into her reply.

‘And you think that you do not?’

‘I know it.’

‘So it is only your body that lies between survival or ruin?’

‘Indeed, my sisters might say thus were they to know of your tender.’

Unexpectedly he laughed, the sound echoing about the dark spaces of the room. ‘Your sisters? Your father? It is for them that you do this? Who is it that looks out for you, then, when you have need for some succour?’ Now all humour was gone completely.

The question had her turning away because in just those few words he had understood what she had tried so hard to hide.

No one .

She had always been alone. Fighting, trying, hobbling into each successive day with the weight of the world on her shoulders and no hope at all of being rid of any of it. Until his promise of help had thrown her with its bright and buoyant hope; a golden troth that had changed everything and now seemed gone.

She hated how expectation made a mockery of morality and when Stephen Hawkhurst held her to the spot with a quick grab of her hand she did her best to shrug him off, short nails digging into the flesh of his wrist. She did not try to be careful or gentle. All she wanted was the cold anger of force, dragging between them, punctuating the impotence and weakness that was her life so far, never in control.

And now another humiliation, more complete than ever before because even with such a simple touch she knew that she had never wanted anyone as much as she wanted Stephen Hawkhurst. Her right hand slapped hard against his arm as she tried to get away.

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