Part IV: A Most Improper Proposition
Chapter Five
He had most certainly called Miss Archer here in order to apologise for his reprehensible behaviour, hoping that the fumes of the alcohol she had imbibed last night had been potent enough and caused her not to remember too distinctly that he had indeed kissed her long and hard. He however recalled this part with outmost clarity.
As she stood before him, dressed in a plain and serviceable merino wool dress that he’d often seen her wear in winter, he realised that he found her every bit as enticing as he had last night, when she’d been dressed as a wood nymph.
Without being able to stop himself, he imagined how it would feel if he were to raise the hem of this serviceable gown and peek at what was underneath. Better even, he thought about being able to get her person out of that serviceable gown altogether.
He cleared his throat.
“Miss Archer, I must truly apologise for my conduct last night. What I did was indeed unforgivable. Let me assure you that I will not take such liberties in future.”
“My conduct was every bit as reprehensible as yours, Your Grace,” he heard her say.
Then he saw her pause and raise her green eyes to levelly meet his.
“The silver combs,” she said in a perfectly composed voice, “it was not Georgie and Jane. It was you, Your Grace.”
Shock washed over him. He had expected her to concur with what he had said and wisely agree that the incident should be put behind them and forever forgotten. He had not expected this.
There was of course no point in denying what he had done.
“When did you realise it?” he asked.
“This morning when I glanced upon the ribbon the parcel had been tied with. It was red,” she told him. “Georgie abhors the colour red and Jane is not very fond of it either. I should have seen it right away. Neither of the girls would have chosen red ribbon for a present.”
He nodded. She was, of course, right. It was something that he had overlooked. And suddenly he found himself at a loss for words. There was nothing that he could think or that he could say.
Fortunately, Miss Archer spoke again.
“I liked the silver combs. I like them still.”
He looked at her, uncomprehending. She should be furious with him.
Miss Archer continued.
“I like the man who gave them to me.”
He could not have heard aright. She spoke again, however.
“I liked it when he kissed me. And I would like him to kiss me again.”
He had not ever heard her speak in this voice. A husky voice which seemed dipped in honey. He shook his head. This was not Miss Archer. It could not be. Some madness had crept over her.
“Miss Archer, please, I ask you to stop now,” he said, struggling to adopt his ducal tone. “You are obviously not yourself.”
She did not seem to mind him however.
“Twelfth Night,” she said. “The girls will be back on Twelfth Night. This means that we have until then.”
He looked at her, in shock. He could not believe what she had just implied. She had obviously taken leave of her senses. As her employer, it was his duty to keep a level head. Still, he could not bring himself to speak.
She seemed to have no trouble speaking her mind, though. She held his gaze levelly and uttered in the same composed voice she’d used earlier.
“I shall be your lover until Twelfth Night. And after this we shall go back to the way things were and not mention this ever again. As if it had never happened.”
He finally found his voice.
“Miss Archer, I beg of you not to put yourself in this position. You forget I am your employer. And I have the advantage, while you do not. And now you are plainly asking me to take advantage of you.”
She shrugged.
“You’ve always had this advantage over me. So I see no change in our circumstances. I’m simply offering myself to you this Christmastide. This Christmastide only. It will of course all stop once the girls are here.”
A Christmas present of herself. To him. It was not something that he could so lightly dismiss. Nor did he want to, though he must. It was wiser to dissuade her from this.
“What makes you think I shall not dismiss you once this is all over?” he asked, attempting to make himself sound cold and indifferent.
“We both know you are an honourable gentleman,” she told him levelly.
“Yet what you’re proposing is not entirely honourable,” he countered.
“But I am the one who is proposing it and not Your Grace,” she answered calmly.
His title sounded ridiculous under the circumstances. And she was of course right. She was offering herself to him, relieving him of the burden of feeling guilty of having made improper advances to her. Because she was the one making the advances. And she was giving him precisely what he wanted. Clever Miss Archer. She knew him too well. While he suddenly found that he did not know her at all.
“I expect nothing in return,” she told him, as if she were echoing his thoughts. “Just the pleasure of your company this Christmastide.”
This sounded entirely far too good to be true. And, against all the warnings that were ringing in his head, he was sinfully tempted to say yes, take her into his arms, and kiss her even longer and harder than he had on Christmas Eve. And, against all warnings, there was much more that he wanted to do. Still, he could not bring himself to ruin a woman who was living under his roof.
“You forget, Miss Archer, that there could be unwanted consequences to all this. And besides, I am not the sort that takes pleasure in ruining an innocent.”
“I was already ruined when I came to this house,” she told him in the same composed tones she’d used earlier.
He took a deep breath. This did not come entirely as a shock. Last night he’d realised he had not been the first man to kiss her passionately. Nor had there ever been, he saw now with sudden clarity, a maidenly air to Miss Archer’s person. She had always been polite, unobtrusive and unassuming, sometimes shy in his presence, but there had also always been a quiet assurance about her that did not belong to a girl, but to a fully grown woman. He instantly asked himself who this lover of hers had been and instantly decided that he could have been nothing but dishonourable, to have deserted her after he had taken advantage of her person. And right at this moment he himself was thinking of taking advantage of her person. He voiced this thought.
“That does not make my intentions less reprehensible,” he said quietly, pausing to add, “or diminishes the danger of begetting a child.”
She shrugged, and then spoke with what seemed to be perfect assurance.
“I’ve been told that gentlemen have certain ways of preventing this sort of thing from happening.”
What a cad her lover had been, he thought drily. He probably had used this assurance in his seduction of her, not bothering to inform her that such ways did not simply prevent such a thing from happening, but only diminished the chances.
He shook his head.
“Still. What if there is a child? Can you imagine how such a thing will affect our lives?”
He hoped he would make her see reason. He hoped she would be wise enough to back down, because at this point, there seemed to be no return from this. She had just offered herself to him. And the trouble was that he wanted her with a ferocity that seemed to obliterate all common sense.
“We could deal with it when the time comes,” she told him, with a perfect lack of common sense. “There is of course nothing that I would expect from you, Your Grace. No obligation that this arrangement will put you under.”
Of course, she did not understand the full implications of this arrangement. How could she? For all her claims that she was a ruined woman, she was behaving like a near innocent. And this was probably what she was. Her life in these past eight years had been so sheltered – with no opportunity to meet other men or converse with them. She clearly did not understand the enormity of what she was proposing. She was not aware that by making this offer to him, she was already putting herself – and her hypothetical child – under a duke’s protection.
He sighed. A mistress for Christmastide. This was too enticing a present to refuse. He felt the immense urge of indulging in this selfishness.
“You understand that once this happens between us, it can never be undone. You and I both, Miss Archer, will have to live with the consequences of it,” he cautioned her.
She nodded, but he still felt that she did not fully understand. Instead of deterring her from this mad scheme, he found himself saying with strange composure:
“Until Twelfth Night it will be then. And let us hope neither of us will live to regret it.”
She nodded again, raising suddenly wide green eyes towards him, as if unsure now if her employer would be dismissing her after their interview or if her newly acquired lover would be finally taking her in his arms.
Henry resisted his sudden urge to make rough love to her there and then. She had already offered herself to him after all, he thought cruelly, instantly picturing her right on the table, with the skirts of her serviceable merino gown hoisted. Taking a deep breath, he willed himself to calm though, and conduct the entire business with utmost caution.
He used his clipped ducal tones in order to do this, feeling rather ridiculous, but in truth not knowing how to handle himself in this situation.
“The servants should not suspect this,” he told her rather coldly. “It would be better if I visited you in your chamber tonight after bedtime.”
He felt somewhat relieved when she acquiesced and finally removed herself from his presence. He almost chastised himself for not calling her back in order to naysay the whole thing. Almost. He did not have the fortitude to tell her to forget what had been said.
Part V, Lovemaking of the Most Shocking Kind, is already here…
