Page 25 of The Mistress (Foxgloves #1)

AMELIA

A melia’s chest ached from both the pleasure of his kiss and the loss of a relationship where he would come home to her every day and give her a simple kiss in greeting. But she wouldn’t be his wife. He wouldn’t come home and kiss her sweetly. He would visit her or summon her to his bed when the mood struck him and only that. She banished the fog of self-pity and focused on the smile on his handsome face. The warmth in those captivating eyes. The tenderness in how he’d touched her.

“How are you?” his beautiful voice asked.

Amelia released her arms, forcing her posture to relax. “I suppose I am well, Your Grace, in all the ways that matter. And you?”

“Much better now that I am with you,” he answered. “And it’s Gideon. Why are you unwell?”

He had understood her meaning perfectly. Of course, he knew what weighed on her, but he was giving her the space to share her thoughts and feelings as he hadn’t yesterday. She recognized that.

“I am troubled, as you can imagine,” she told him, as she clasped her hands together. She knew he would ask, so she answered before he did, “By the proposition you left with me.”

“What concerns do you have, dear?” His rasping velvet voice washed over her, strong and sure. It caused some of the tightness in her to ease. Even with the bleakness of her new reality, the choice that had never really been a choice, she immediately felt better. This was why she would be with him any way he wanted, because they had a connection that went deeper than titles, status, propriety, even lust. He anchored her. Kept her steady. And she softened him.

Unlike his frustration yesterday when she was reeling, he was trying to care of her. She could feel it in the clear control and confidence emanating from him and the way he focused it on her. Such a stark contrast to the last time he was in this room. Angry, aloof, abrupt.

She met his emerald eyes and felt more secure.

“A few,” she said, her voice taking on the strength he lent her, and he smiled encouragingly. “First, you swore to take care of me for the rest of my days. What will happen when you bore of me or when my years begin to show?”

Gideon chuckled. “If only I could tire of you so easily, Amy. You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I doubt our years together will do anything to diminish that. But to ease your worry, should I dare to ever stray from you, you will always be looked after and provided for by me and no other. Until the very last of your days. Even after I die, I shall leave arrangements to make sure you needn’t worry for what remains of your life.”

His words finally broke through the ice numbing her heart, warming her where the fire failed. But as wonderful as his words were, there was also the reality of the situation. “And your wife, when you have one?” She ignored the sharp pain in her chest at the thought and forced herself to speak past it. “I am sure she would not be very accepting of a lifelong mistress or the burden of one.”

“I do not intend to marry,” he told her, his deep voice patient and calm. “But in the unlikely circumstance I do, my wife will have no concern over where my heart lay. I will make that clear from the start. She will have a title, money, a house to run, and children to care for.”

The whirlwind of emotions that bombarded Amelia was overwhelming. On one hand, she had his heart, something he had never confessed to her before. Yet, in the same breath, he told her he’d share her dreams for her life with another woman. Nor would he be faithful to her. And why would he? She was the mistress.

All the spinning in her mind stopped at a single thought. Children .

“Yes, children,” he said, brow furrowing slightly as he scrutinized her.

She must have muttered the word out loud.

“We can have children,” he said, his face softening and arms uncrossing as he understood her desires.

“They would be bastards,” Amelia said with a twist of her face, hating the word.

“Yes,” he grit out as if the thought was equally as abhorrent to him. “And they would be loved and want for nothing,” he vowed.

“Save a name,” she whispered more to herself.

She noticed a flash of pain flit across his face at whatever he heard in her voice or perhaps the truth of her words. But he didn’t say anything. What could he say, after all?

She turned her head to stare into the fire and allowed herself another moment to apologize to the children she had yet to bear. She would have them and damn them to a nameless future. Selfishly, she would give herself the chance to be a mother.

With a deep breath, she returned to the task at hand and the family member that existed now.

“I would ask something of you,” she met his eyes with determination.

“Name it.”

“I would see my sister settled respectably and in a happy home before…we begin our arrangement,” she said, struggling to describe their relationship.

He nodded. “Then you will see it done.”

Amelia couldn’t contain her relieved sigh as he accepted her biggest concern. She still had to tell him the details of the current situation between Thomas and Lydia, but just the simple surety with which he joined her in the challenge finally eased her worry. Lydia and Thomas would be settled. Between the two of them, they’d accomplish the task easily over the next few weeks.

Gideon seemed pleased to have so obviously eased her concern. He asked, “Is there anyone in particular you’d see her wed? Perhaps someone she fancies?”

“Thomas,” she replied.

Gideon blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Thomas,” Amelia repeated. Then when Gideon continued to look confused, she added, almost in question, “Thomas Colbrook. The Earl of Coventry.”

“That’s not possible, my dear.”

“Why not?” she demanded, her brow pinching. Lydia and Thomas loved each other, they both admitted it and knew it, and they had even started courting. It should be incredibly simple. Just a matter of hurrying them along. Amelia wanted to see her sister building the home she would never have. If anyone could secure the match quickly, it was Gideon. “It shouldn’t be difficult,” Amelia assured him. “They love each other dearly.”

“Amy,” Gideon explained in an exaggeratedly kind tone. “Thomas would not bed you while being in love with your sister. If anything, I think he has been hoping for a similar kind of arrangement with her. And we cannot make your sister a countess or gain any sort of title. We must find her a simpler, but still happy, home.”

If he’d pushed her straight into the fire, Amelia could not have been more shocked.

“Bed me,” she repeated, aghast. “Thomas has never bed me. I have never been with any man.” She couldn’t believe she even had to utter those words. Bed her? Thomas? The man who could not be more of a brother to her, her lover? That’s what Gideon thought?

Gideon went rigid, his jaw clenching. Coldness seeped into his voice as he spoke, “Indeed.”

He didn’t believe her. It was clear in the icy shift to his demeanor. Not only did he think she had an affair with Thomas, he thought she was lying to him about it.

Amelia’s sad resignation to the whole situation finally, finally , turned to fury. Here she was, laying her honor, her dreams, herself on the line for him, to have him in any way she could, to love him and see that love watered no matter the pot it was in, and he thought she could give herself up so easily to any man? To more than one? To Thomas ? To anyone but Gideon? Did he think he was just another man in a line of men to her? Did he not see her love? Did he not feel it?

She had put all her faith and trust into him, and yet he didn’t know or understand her at all. How could she have been so perfectly mistaken in that?

Amelia dropped her hands to either side, straightened her shoulders, and announced, lifting her chin, “I believe it’s time for you to leave, Your Grace.”

His strength suddenly felt weak to her, so she called upon her own.

His green eyes flashed. “Not yet,” he replied.

Her anger escalated. “You seem to misunderstand. It was not a request.” Her voice was hard.

Gideon’s anger seemed to rise, matching hers. He peeled himself off the edge of the couch with such slow, precise movements, such power radiating from him, that even in her anger, Amelia’s heart stuttered. Her eyes widened as he approached her, watching her like he owned her. Like she belonged to him. As if in proof, she felt the connection she had with him go taut in her chest as he stepped closer. She was pinned, ensnared, trapped by those hard emerald eyes.

As hard as he gazed at her, the hand that reached up and cupped her cheek was indescribably gentle. She was caught between her own anger, the focused control of his eyes, and the tender caress of his fingers.

He leaned down, an inch from her face, and Amelia breathed in the spice of his scent. “Not. Yet,” he repeated softly, and then his mouth was on hers. He didn’t ease into it. No, he took her mouth with the same ownership his eyes had collared her with. His tongue ravished her, and a moan tore through her as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, meeting his kiss with the ferocity of her own simmering anger, hurt, desire, and love.