unfortunately disturbed. Not that I would not have had matters otherwise if I had had my way. Surely it must have been obvious to common sense that if we had been in the process of enjoying each other, we would not have been standing in the library, almost respectably clothed.'
'In my employment I was not permitted to have any dealings with male guests,' Jessica said.
' 'Dealings,' ' he repeated. 'Standing in the library very properly repulsing the advances of a male guest was construed as having dealings? My poor Miss Moore. I am so dreadfully sorry. I had no idea. Even when I left this morning, I was quite unaware that you had been called to account and sent packing.'
Jessica wished he would remove his finger from beneath her chin. She was finding looking into his eyes very uncomfortable. 'You do not owe me an apology, my lord,' she said. 'What happened was not your fault. I have been in trouble before for leaving my room after retiring for the night. It was not your fault that I was in the library when I had no business being downstairs at all.'
He looked searchingly into her eyes for a moment but was prevented from commenting by the arrival of the innkeeper with their dinner. He released his hold of her chin and gestured toward the table, where he seated her with marked courtesy. The landlord too, she noticed, bowed in her direction after filling her wine glass.
Jessica enjoyed the meal far more than she would have thought possible. The food was good, though plain. But it was not that that caused the enjoyment. She was not, truth to tell, hungry after a day of being squashed and jostled on the road. But she found the stiff courtesy of the valet as he served them soothing to her bruised pride. And she found Lord Rutherford an interesting and surprisingly charming host. He set himself to entertain her conversationally and did so, taking upon himself the whoie burden of introducing and developing various topics.
She realized at the end of the meal that he had succeeded in setting her entirely at her ease. And that was quite a feat when one considered that she was dining alone with a man whose attractions had been doing strange things to her heartbeat for all of a week. And how improper it was to be sitting thus with him, un-chaperoned in the private parlor of an inn! But really, she thought as she folded her napkin at the end of the meal, she did not care.
Lord Rutherford had settled back in his chair, one forearm resting on the table, playing with the stem of his empty wine glass. He was looking at her in such a way that she knew that the courtesy a host owed his guest during a meal was at an end. There would be no more purely social conversation, she thought with some regret.
'What are your plans, Miss Moore?' he asked.
Jessica smoothed the cloth before her on the table. 'I shall move on to other employment,' she said with a shrug.
'As what?' he asked. 'I do not imagine the Barries have given you a glowing character reference with which to dazzle a future employer.'
'No,' she admitted after a short pause during which she could think of nothing else to say.
'You cannot be a governess, then,' he said quietly, 'or a lady's companion. Or a librarian. Or even a lady's maid. Probably not even a scullery maid. Do you have a family to which to return?'
'No,' Jessica said after a moment's hesitation.
'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
'I do not believe you would regret the decision to become my mistress,' the Earl of Rutherford said.
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
