“And I am to be that gentleman...?”
Sylvie looked at him coolly. “Only if you are willing to accept the relationship under my terms.”
His eyes narrowed. “And those terms are...?”
She drew in a deep breath. “One—there will be no other lovers in your life for as long as this...arrangement between us lasts, the arrangement becoming null and void if that should ever be the case.”
“I believe I have already stated there will be no other women.”
“No, you stated I should not be allowed other lovers but you,” she recalled dryly.
He frowned grimly. “I give you my word there will be no other women for me, either, for the time of our own affair.”
Her mouth thinned. “Two—we will meet a maximum of two nights a week—”
“Two?” Christian repeated, astounded. “I had it more in mind to spend every night together until we had sated our desire for each other.”
“A maximum of two,” Sylvie repeated firmly.
“Three,” he stated stubbornly. “And let us hope that you will succeed in so satiating my appetite during those times that I have no strength left to so much as think of bedding another woman the other four nights of the week!”
Sylvie looked at him searchingly for several long minutes before nodding slowly. “Very well, three.”
“Beginning with this one,” he added softly.
Sylvie’s eyes widened in alarm. Tonight? Christian wished to start bedding her this very night?
Somehow, in all her thinking the evening before, Sylvie had avoided actually dwelling on when Christian would require her to start sharing his bed. Just the thought of it being this night, in several hours’ time, was enough to make her tremble. In trepidation, she hoped...
“Very well,” she agreed. “Three—our times together will be spent here rather than in my own home—”
“Why?”
Sylvie avoided directly meeting that piercing green gaze. “It is enough that I prefer it should be so.”
Christian’s lids narrowed as he looked at her searchingly for several long seconds before murmuring. “It is not the usual way of things...”
“I am aware of that.”
“The fact that you are here this morning, calling at the home of a single gentleman without so much as your maid in attendance, would be cause for gossip among the ton if any were to learn of it, let alone the knowledge that you are spending three nights a week here in my bed.”
“Then we will have to endeavor to ensure that none of the ton learn the terms of our arrangement,” Sylvie dismissed. “And I will not be spending the whole night here, merely a few hours.”
His brow rose. “You intend sneaking out of my house like a thief in the middle of the night?”
Her jaw tensed. “Gentlemen do it all the time, so why should I not do the same!”
“Why would you even risk such a thing?” Christian pondered.
Sylvie’s eyes flashed darkly as she looked at him with contempt. “Perhaps because I have no intention of sharing a bed with you in the home I shared with my husband until his death?”
Christian felt a harsh shard of jealousy rip through him at the thought of Sylvie sharing the home—and the bed—of another man. Especially that of the husband she had thrown him over for four years ago.
He rose slowly to his feet, his mouth curving into a hard smile as he saw the way Sylvie instantly took a step back and away from him. “Did you love him after all, then?”
She looked startled for a moment, and then that coolness settled on her face once more. “As I told you yesterday evening, Gerald was a man it was all too easy to respect and admire.”
“I asked if you loved him!” Christian reached out to grasp the tops of her arms, his glittering gaze easily holding her own captive.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I have already told you—”
“That you respected and admired Gerald Moorland.” A nerve pulsed in Christian’s clenched jaw as he continued to glare down at her. “They are the emotions one feels for a favorite uncle, not a husband!”
Possibly because that was how Sylvie had always regarded Gerald, who had been a friend of her father’s. That affection had grown exponentially when Gerald, finding her alone and sobbing in the garden during one of his visits, had demanded she tell him what ailed her, only to then offer her the respectability of marriage to him and legitimacy for her unborn babe rather than scandal for her whole family.
Sylvie had initially refused Gerald’s offer, of course, claiming that a marriage between the two of them would be unfair to him, when she was still in love with the father of her baby, when a part of her had still hoped—prayed—that the rumors she had heard about Christian were untrue, and that he would either write to her or appear in person and that the two of them would then marry.
But Gerald had been tenacious, repeating his offer several more times during the next few weeks until, tired and heartsick at Christian’s continued silence, Sylvie knew she had no choice but to acknowledge she had merely been a passing fancy for him, someone for him to make love to and with during the weeks of his leave from the army.
She looked up to meet Christian’s gaze unflinchingly. “Any discussion of my feelings for my husband will not be a part of our arrangement.”
Christian frowned down at her in frustration for several minutes, annoyed with Sylvie’s stubbornness, but even more annoyed with himself for still desiring her so much he was willing to allow her to dictate the terms of their future relationship. Up to a point!
“I believe it is usual for gentlemen to shake hands at the successful conclusion of a deal,” he murmured gruffly. “And for men and women to kiss,” he added before his head swooped down and he claimed her lips with his own.
She tasted of honey, and smelt of violets, the fullness of her curves fitting perfectly against Christian as his arms tightened about her and he deepened the kiss, his erection rising to press against her as his tongue swept between the parted softness of her lips—
Sylvie wrenched her mouth from his, her cheeks flushed as she pushed away from him, her eyes bright as she looked up at him, her nose wrinkling with distaste. “You smell of cheap liquor and even cheaper perfume!”
Christian scowled his frustration. At eighteen Sylvie had seemed like an open book to him, her brightness and enthusiasm for life attracting him as nothing else could have done after so many months of battle and death. A brightness and innocence that had been deliberately designed to entice, Christian had realized after he returned to England and learned that she had married another man, another earl, in the three short months of his absence.
He found the confident woman who now stood before him, her every thought a mystery to him, totally frustrating and yet no less intriguing.
His mouth firmed. “What time will you come to me tonight?”
Her throat moved as she swallowed before answering. “Does eleven o’clock suit?”
Christian’s brows rose. “You do not intend to join me for dinner first?”
She eyed him coolly. “For what purpose?”
He scowled. “So that we might engage in conversation before the bedding.”
“Again, for what purpose?” She eyed him disdainfully. “The rakish life you have led these past four years holds no more interest for me than I am sure my own more sedate one does for you.”
“Very well.” Christian breathed his irritation