The Ungrateful Governness

3

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.

"I shall have your valise brought down," Rutherford said, smiling warmly into her eyes. "You may go through to the bedchamber, Jess. I shall join you there in-shall we say half an hour's time?"

"Yes, my lord," she said breathlessly, and allowed him to take her by the elbow and lead her to the door of the inner room.

Rutherford looked at his pocket watch. He would give her five more minutes, he decided. He might have made a tactical error in not taking her himself into the bedchamber and undressing her. It was his usual method. They could have sent for her bag in the morning. However, this case was a little different from the usual. Miss Jessica Moore was a virgin, or his guess was very wide of the mark. He had not had a virgin before and, truth to tell, did not know quite how to go about the matter of bedding her. He had deemed it wise to allow her time to prepare herself and clothe herself in that very virginal nightgown she had worn the night before. Time enough to remove it when they were under the bedcovers and he had warmed her up.

He was feeling unusally agitated himself, Rutherford thought, gazing down ruefully at the glass of wine he held in his hands. His third? Fourth? Of course, he was unaccustomed to awaiting his pleasure. And it was quite out of character for him to engage a mistress. He had done it once several years before and had been forced to endure the female long after inclination had made his visits tedious. It is far easier to begin such a relationship than to break it off, he had found.

His offer to Jessica Moore had been quite impulsive. The whole idea had been conceived and put into effect within one hour. Would he regret it? He did not even know if she would make a satisfactory bedfellow, though his brief exploration half an hour before had revealed a body even more feminine and curvaceous than he had suspected. Certainly tonight might not be an enjoyable experience. She would be nervous, awkward. She would have no idea how to please him. And he might hurt her. But even apart from the all-important sexual aspect of their relationship, would he find her an interesting enough companion to make him want to return to her again and again? He had enjoyed their dinner table conversation, but he realized that he had done almost all the talking.

The trouble was, Rutherford thought, putting his empty glass down on the floor beside him, getting to his feet, and removing his coat and waistcoat, he really had not had much choice but to make her his offer. Jessica, he suspected, did not quite realize how serious her predicament was. He had not exaggerated when he had told her that within a week she would be facing starvation or a life as a street prostitute. He owed her his protection. It was because of him that she had lost her situation with the Barries.

And by God, he admitted, removing his neckcloth and undoing the top buttons of his shirt, he wanted her. Finding a luscious beauty hidden behind the disguise of a little gray mouse was enough to stir any man's senses. He would not feel guilt. He was doing the best he could to look after her. He would treat her well. He always treated his women well in bed, always paid them generously afterward. Jess Moore would live like a lady, and he would provide handsomely for her when he finally tired of her. She would not need ever again to be a gray governess.

She was standing at the foot of the bed when he went into the room, brushing her hair and looking just exactly as she had looked in the Barries' library the night before. Rutherford closed the door behind him and allowed his eyes to roam over her. He expected her to look tense. She gazed calmly back at him and laid the brush down on a stool. He closed the distance between them.

"Have I kept you waiting?" he asked. "You look very beautiful, Jess."

He placed his hands on her shoulders and drew her against him. He lowered his mouth to hers. And immediately began the fight to control his desire. There was no virginal shrinking in her. Although his hands held only her shoulders, her body immediately fitted itself to his from firm, full breasts to knees. He cradled her head with one hand and rested the other against the small of her back. He set himself to ignore the demands of his body while he slowly coaxed her mouth into deeper intimacy.

He waited until his tongue had been allowed full and deep possession of her mouth before moving his hands knowingly over her again and lifting her up to carry her to the bed. She watched him as he undressed and climbed into the bed beside her. He had decided not to snuff the candles before doing so.

He wanted her then. He did not wish to wait another moment. He could not remember when the need to mount a woman's body had been quite so urgent. But she was not ready. She was langarous but not aroused. He set himself to arouse her, unbuttoning her nightgown to the waist so that he might touch her warm flesh, stroke her breasts with expert hands and mouth. He slid the linen of her nightgown up her legs so that he might caress her more intimately. She lay on her back, still, her eyes closed, her breathing quickened, her body tensing, and her heart thumping beneath the hand that moved over her left breast.

Now, he thought at last, lowering his head to kiss her deeply once more before moving his weight onto her so that he might enter her body and finally unleash his passion in her. She was looking at him, shaking her head slightly.

"No," she whispered. "No, I cannot. I am sorry. I cannot."

He brushed her lips softly with his own and willed control on himself again. "Relax," he said. "There is no haste. I can wait for you. I know it is your first time. I want it to be good for you."

"No," she said, and her eyes were big with unshed tears suddenly. "I cannot do this, my lord. I thought I could. I truly did. I have reasoned it out with myself and I can see no great wrong with it under the circumstances. But reason is no good against the moral habits of a lifetime, you see. Please, I must leave. I cannot do this."

Rutherford swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up with a jerk. He buried his fingers in his hair, his elbows resting on his knees. God, did she know what she was asking? Did she realize how very nearly impossible it was to grant her request? He willed calmness on his body. His mind would not function while the blood pumped so furiously through him.

"I am sorry," she said again from the bed behind him.

"So am I, Jess," he said. "So am I, believe me."

"It is just that I have been so frightened all day," she said. "I do not know what to do, you see. I do not even know why I am going to London. It is because I have to go somewhere and do something, I suppose."

"Yes," he agreed, hoping through words to drown out his physical agony, "I can understand your predicament. I thought I had offered a solution that would be thoroughly satisfactory to both of us."

"I think it might have been," she said, "if it did not feel so very wrong. And I truly do not know what I am to do now. But I must go to the room allotted to me here."

"There really is another alternative for you, Jess," he said, his thumb and one finger rubbing his eyes, concentrating hard on the activity. "I was too selfish to mention it while I thought there was a chance of the other."

"Oh, what?" she asked. She was sitting up behind him. He dared not turn around. Even if she had buttoned up her nightgown again, her hair would be in voluptuous disarray from the pillow and his playing hands.

"I shall take you to someone," he said, "someone in London who will take care of you on my recommendation."

"A brothel?" she asked in a shocked whisper.

Rutherford felt an unexpected wave of amusement at the idea of his grandmother's very respectable establishment being mistaken for a brothel and his grandmother for a procuress.

"No," he said. "An elderly lady of great influence who will find you genteel employment, Jess, despite the lack of a recommendation from your former employers. Her word will be far more respected than theirs, you may be assured.

"Oh, will you?" she cried with such passionate gratitude that he felt sudden guilt for what he had tried to perpetrate against her, and his desire began finally to come under his control. "How very generous you are, my lord. I must leave here and go to my room." She scrambled off the other side of the bed.

Rutherford stood up, raising his eyebrows as he looked around at her and noted her flood of embarrassment. "Get back into bed, Jess," he said. "This is where you are going to sleep tonight. I will not molest you further. You have my word on it, though I do believe there is a lock on the door if you are unconvinced. I shall sleep in the parlor. Perhaps you would do me the honor of breakfasting with me?"

"I cannot stay here," she said, turning to him again now that he had pulled on his breeches.

"Yes," he said. "This you can and will do. You will not spend the night in an attic with the servants. You will sleep in this bed tonight even if I have to break my word and sleep in it with you to hold you here."

The fight had gone out of her, he saw. He picked up his shirt from the floor, made her a mock bow, and withdrew to the parlor, where he spent an uncomfortable and near sleepless night on one of the worn armchairs, feeling less than charitable with the whole of the female sex, devising in his mind wonderful tortures for Miss Jessica Moore, and cursing his own tenderness of conscience that would not allow him any intimacy with a female for which he did not have her full consent.

Moments! Moments only and he would have mounted her and it would have been too late for her sudden attack of moral scruples. He could have taught her to enjoy instead. And she would have enjoyed. He had never failed to delight a woman with that part of his lovemaking. She had already been responding with flattering heat until somehow her mind had gained the ascendancy over her body.

And he would have enjoyed! There was no doubt whatsoever about that. Jessica had excited him more than any other woman he could recall at the moment.

Damnation!

He was certainly never going to have anything to do with virgins again.

Except his wife, he thought with a grimace. Whoever she turned out to be.

Jessica did not sleep much better, though she lay awake in greater comfort than the man in the adjoining room. She was consumed by embarrassment and guilt. Embarrassment at what she had done with Lord Rutherford, what she had allowed him to do. Guilt at what she had done to him. She had agreed to become his mistress, had allowed him to take her to bed, allowed him unimagined intimacies, and then denied him the ultimate one. She had some inkling of the great willpower it had taken him to stop at that particular moment. She also realized full well that perhaps only one man in a thousand would have stopped. And how could she have accused him if he had not?

But he had stopped and then, instead of throwing her out into the inn corridor in her nightgown and hurling her valise after her, he had insisted that she sleep in his bed for the night while he sat up in one of those shabby chairs in the parlor. And he had promised to give her an introduction to a lady in London who would find her employment. Jessica had her doubts about his ability to do so, but she appreciated his generosity in being willing to try.

In fact, strange as it seemed, she felt a certain respect for the Earl of Rutherford. True, he had tried to seduce her the night before, and tonight he had made her a very improper offer of employment and had tried to seal their contract without delay. But the man was no ravisher. He took her for a servant, which she was. She knew that for many gentlemen, women of the servant class were considered theirs for the having. And yet Lord Rutherford had been willing to release her without argument the night before, and he had let her go tonight even after she had consented both verbally and physically to allow him his will.

Why had she stopped him? It had not been fear. Not physical fear anyway. She had wanted him even before he had come into the bedchamber. The wanting had become almost a pain as soon as he came to her and touched her. In fact, she had not waited for him to bring her against him. She had put herself there, in an instinctive need to dull the ache of her longing against his body. And on the bed she had felt no shrinking, no embarrassment-that came only now, afterward. She had felt no shock when his hands had found their way so easily inside and beneath her nightgown. She had only wanted more, had been aware with an almost unbearable surge of heat that even that was not enough. It was not enough that he was against her skin, caressing, teasing, exploring. She had wanted him beneath her skin, deep inside her very being.

Why, then, had she stopped him? It seemed now little short of miraculous that she had been able to do so when she had wanted him so desperately. But there lay her answer, she realized. Had she been less excited, less full of aching pleasure, she probably would have allowed him to carry the act to its conclusion. It was her very pleasure that had forced her to stop what was happening.

The truth was that becoming a man's mistress, allowing him the full access to her body that her upbringing had taught her she must surrender only to a husband, was totally against all the moral training of her youth. Until this day she had never even dreamed that such an offer as Lord Rutherford's could be a temptation to her. She would rather die than lose her virtue, she would have thought even just yesterday. Yet she had agreed to his offer. Her own future had looked so desperate that she had agreed. Better to become Lord Rutherford's mistress, she had reasoned, than totally to lose her pride by taking the only other alternative open to her.

But, her decison made, Jessica felt the need of punishment, or at least the need to feel that the employment she had agreed to would involve some hard work or some sacrifice. If she had found Lord Rutherford's touch unpleasant, if she had had to contend with fear or embarrassment or a sense of humiliation in bed with him, she probably would have considered that she was earning her keep, doing a difficult job only because she had no alternative, or at least no alternative that she chose to take.

Her conscience would not allow her to do something that she knew was almost the ultimate in sin and enjoy it at the same time. There would be no sacrifice in being the mistress of the Earl of Rutherford, no punishment for the sin involved. It would be wonderful. She would probably enjoy every moment of her life with him.

Jessica was sitting up in the bed, her arms clasped around her knees. She rested her forehead on them. She had saved herself by moments. Although he had still been beside her on the bed, she had sensed that she was about to bear his weight, that he was about to take a husband's privilege. A moment more and she would have known how all the yearning ache of those preceding minutes was to end. There was pain, she had heard. There was tedium and indignity, she had once overheard from two matrons who had not known she was within earshot. But she did not believe any of those things for one moment. Lord Rutherford would be as expert with his body as he was with his hands and his mouth. Probably more so. She had no doubt at all that she had deliberately denied herself what would have been the greatest pleasure of her life.

And for what? For continued life as a governess? As a companion? How very dreary was the prospect for what remained of her life. She slid under the bedcovers, determined yet again to try to sleep. At least she still had her most valuable possession, she thought wryly: her virtue. If she could be said to still have that. And at least she had more hope than she had had all day. Perhaps that elderly lady in London would be able to find her something.

She would not think of it, she decided, until the morning.

Or of Lord Rutherford.

Or of his lovemaking and the consummation she had missed.

Jessica tossed and turned on the bed for what remained of the night.