Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)

“What if I paid you for a week?” she asked, desperate to put off the decision.

“I don’t let by the week. There’s no profit in it—weekly renters come in and tear up my good walls, they do.”

“I’m not a weekly renter. I’ve been here twelve years!”

“And I’d always be coming round, too. That’s no way for a man to spend his life, hounding tenants for the money what’s owed him.”

“I’ll pay you a pound for the week,” she said with a sigh.

A spark of interest flared in his eyes. “Pound,” he mused. His lips moved as he calculated precisely how much she’d offered to overpay him. “And you’ll pay the full quarterly amount next week. I’ll make an exception this once, because we’ve known each other this long a time. But no more.”

He shook her hand and took her money.

If I stay here. Frugality demanded she find another place to live. That she find some sort of work. So why was she balking at the thought? Jenny sighed and shut the door and walked to the back room. She opened the chest of drawers there.

That cream-and-red-striped gown Gareth had forced on her lay in place, wrapped in paper. She ran her finger down the smooth satin. It was finer than anything she’d ever owned. How much could she get for it? Ten pounds? Fifteen? She had no notion of the market for such things, having never purchased such a dress for herself.

Fifteen pounds. She could eke out an existence on that amount for over a year, if she found a bed in a rooming-house. But aside from the fact that it wouldn’t be fun or comfortable to do so, she couldn’t let herself admit the bare truth. If she stayed in London, it was for one reason only. For Gareth.

And there would be no Gareth if she took herself off to one of the places where she could survive on fifteen pounds a year. She might as well move to Morocco as far as he was concerned. His fastidious nature barely tolerated these rooms, clean and cozy as they were. A lodging-house, inhabited by cockroaches and lice, would have even less appeal for him than it did for her. As for finding one that allowed her gentlemen callers…Well, she could give up any hope of living at a decent address.

No. The fifteen pounds she collected from the sale of this dress would be a temporary solution only. Quarterly rent on these rooms. Fifteen pounds would give her time to investigate her loss at the bank more closely, to see if anything could be done to recover her savings. She would be able to think through her options carefully, rationally. Find some position, somewhere, without need for panic. It would see her through the three coming months of summer. Three months of his touch…She could honestly expect no more. Dung beetles, not dogs.

At the end, there would be enough left to take her away from London, if that’s what she decided.

It wasn’t what she’d hoped for in her most secret dreams. But there was, after all, a reason she kept those foolish desires secret.

FOUR DAYS of Jenny’s precious week elapsed. Three nights of Gareth’s touch. Four days spent walking the city. Reading advertisements. Trying to find some possibility for her future.

She’d spent four days hoping without reason, and she still had no answer to the question that burned inside her: how could she stay Gareth’s lover without becoming his mistress?

Her question was finally answered on the fourth evening. Gareth came to her rooms as he always did, at the point when the sun tinged the streets with red. He was dressed formally: black trousers and jacket, crisp white shirt and a yellow striped waistcoat with a silk cravat.

“Are you going somewhere tonight?” she asked.

He shrugged, more somber than usual. “Here. That’s all.”

“And do you plan to attend the opera in these rooms?”

“See here,” he said. “Just shut your eyes.”

She did, and lifted her face, expecting a kiss. Instead, his hands brushed wisps of hair off her shoulders. He reached behind her. And then heavy, cold orbs tumbled against her collarbones.

Her eyes snapped open as he hooked the clasp around her neck. She couldn’t see what he’d given her until she pulled the heavy stones away from her chest. Big sapphires, as thick as her thumb, linked together with intricately worked gold. The largest stone at the bottom twinkled a dark, clear blue where it hung in the valley between her br**sts. The necklace dragged around her shoulders.

The piece must have cost thousands of pounds.

It felt like it weighed thousands of pounds.

She fumbled at the clasp behind her neck. The hook eluded her.

“Take it off me,” she said. She was trembling, unable to think.

“You don’t like it.” He enunciated each word carefully, tasting them as if ascertaining that the wine had truly gone to vinegar.

“Of course I like it. It’s beautiful.”