Females and their primping. Since his return to the house nearly two hours ago, he’d bathed and shaved, slipped into clean clothes and soothed his taut nerves with a large whiskey, all the while conscious of the silence abovestairs.
What the hell was keeping her?
Scowling, he directed an impatient glance toward the landing above, his mind filled with an image of Cassandra’s lush curves filling out one of the gorgeous new gowns he’d bought her that afternoon.
His body stirred, and his scowl deepened. Five minutes more, he decided. After that, he would bloody well charge up those stairs to fetch her. And then what? Take her then and there, without the finesse she deserved?
Patience, man, he told himself with grim resolve. It didn’t pay to appear too eager. He’d never met a female yet who hesitated to use her body as a bargaining chip.
Lord, but she was going to be beautiful in one of those gowns. Luke didn’t give a shit which one she chose; they were all of fine silk or velvet and expressly designed to display a wealth of cleavage. He imagined feasting his eyes on creamy white skin and getting occasional glimpses of her nipples as the neckline of her dress dipped low. Ah, yes…
He missed a step as it occurred to him he had no idea what color her nipples were. Pert brown? Delicious pink? Lush rose? He was getting hard just thinking about it. A smile touched his mouth. First, they’d enjoy a leisurely supper by candlelight. He’d ordered something light, with delicate sauces to tease her palate while he engaged her in suggestive conversation. A little wine with the meal would help her to relax. Then, after a lush, sumptuous dessert, during which he would offer to feed her from his own plate, with his own fork, he’d take her to the drawing room.
Brandy for him, sherry for her. When the liquor had loosened her up and the moment seemed right, he’d coax one of her breasts from its nest of silk. Maybe he’d even moisten her nipple with brandy, then lick it clean, teasing and nibbling until the sensitive crest grew deliciously turgid. Ah, yes…then he’d nip her lightly with his teeth until she quivered and sobbed and begged him to take all of her into his mouth. He’d hold back, of course, denying her what she wanted. Make her squirm against him and plead with him to—
“Mr. Taggart?”
Luke jumped so violently, he nearly parted company with his boots. He whirled toward the landing. Cassandra stood above him, grasping the railing, her huge blue eyes filled with concern. Luke’s gaze shot to her breasts, which were completely covered with—what the hell? The little minx was wearing one of his best shirts over her dress!
“Yes?” His voice sounded like an unoiled door hinge. He swallowed. “Cassandra, why on earth are you wearing my shirt?”
Her cheeks went scarlet. “I hope you don’t mind my sneaking into your room for it.”
Randy as a four-horned goat, Luke would have granted her nearly anything, just not his goddamned shirt. All that delectable cleavage, and it was hidden. He was so disappointed, he could have wept.
“Of course I don’t mind.” He clenched his teeth, flexing the muscle along his jaw. “Doesn’t the gown fit you properly?”
“Well…” Her cheeks grew even pinker. “Sort of, and sort of not. I’m not sure how to explain.”
Luke held out a hand, beckoning her to him. “Well, come down here, sweetheart, and try.”
“But I’m not really dressed. I mean, not properly and all.” She leaned out over the railing as if to check for interlopers in the foyer. “What if someone sees?” she whispered.
What if someone saw what? She was wrapped up like a package for long-distance mailing. Luke found it difficult to tear his gaze from her chest. Leaning out over the railing the way she was, with the wood pressing her breasts up—well, suffice it to say, his shirt was filled out in places it had never been before. Jesus H. Christ.
“No one will see, honey.” His voice still had an unmistakable squeak. He sounded like an adolescent boy. He lifted his hand higher. “Please, come on down. We’ll step into the drawing room for privacy, if that’ll make you feel better.”
Luke watched as she descended the staircase. The blue velvet dress she wore was exactly the right length. He’d taken her brown wool gown to the dressmaker, and the woman had gotten measurements off it to make some quick alterations on the ready-made garments Luke had selected. If the length had turned out this perfectly, how could any of the other measurements be that far off the mark?
“Is the waistline too snug?” he asked.
“No. The waist fits me well enough. In fact, it fits me pretty well everywhere.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Her cheeks flamed again. When she reached the foyer, Luke took her hands in his. Making a great show of moving back to regard her at arm’s length, he smiled and said, “I knew that color of blue would be beautiful on you. If you’d only take off that shirt, I bet you’d be a vision.”
She licked her lips, which made his groin tighten, and then she glanced away, looking utterly miserable. “Oh, Mr. Taggart, I don’t want to seem ungrateful.”
“Luke,” he corrected. How could he make love to the woman if she persisted in being so formal? “And what makes you think you may seem ungrateful?”
“Because I’m going to have to insist you return all the dresses. I can’t possibly wear any of them.”
“Why the hell not?”
The dresses had cost Luke a small fortune. Cassandra should be drooling over them. He’d gone the gamut: delicate underthings, lacy lingerie, expensive silk stockings, sexy red garters, and dainty black velvet slippers.
With extreme effort, Luke managed to modulate his voice before he spoke again. “I thought they were beautiful dresses, and I had the dressmaker alter them especially for you. How can I possibly take them back?”
“You mean you can’t get your money back?”
“Not without going to a lot of trouble!”
Her gaze clung to his. Still smarting with disappointment, Luke returned her regard with unflinching resolve. If the gowns fit her, she could damned well wear them. He wasn’t about to endure a bout of female histrionics every time something didn’t suit her just so.
Even as he hauled in a deep breath to lay down the law to her, her beautiful eyes began to fill with tears. No wailing and sobbing, as he was accustomed to. That he could have handled. Oh, no. She just stood there looking crushed, with that incredibly sweet and luscious mouth atremble, and her small chin quivering.
An odd feeling swept through him, reminding him of the time he’d knocked over a vase in the brothel where his mother had once worked. With dreamlike slowness, he’d seen the vase falling, had known it was going to shatter if he didn’t catch it. Heart in his throat and unable to breathe, he’d made a wild lunge, only to succeed in knocking over the table as well.
The infuriated madam had blistered his backside but good for his clumsiness while all the girls stood around and laughed at the sight of his bare ass. His mother had been part of the audience, of course. Betraying him, as always.
Heat climbed his neck even as he drew his brows together. Damn it all, Cassandra wasn’t made of glass, and just because her chin quivered was no reason for him to feel panicked. He’d learned years ago never to let a woman get under his skin. When they wept, it was usually to get their own way—a manipulative tactic, nothing more. And he refused to be manipulated.
Trying for a firm, no-nonsense tone, he said, “Cassandra, I have very little patience with weepy women.”
A gigantic tear spilled over her lower lashes and trailed down her cheek. The awful, almost frantic feeling within him intensified.
“Honey, please, don’t cry.” He gripped her hands more tightly, not liking the desperate edge in his voice. So what if she cried? It wasn’t as if the world would end. “It’s not that important. If you don’t like the dresses, you don’t like the dresses. I’ll buy you others.”
“It’s not that I don’t like them,” she said in a choked voice. “They’re the most beautiful dres
ses I’ve ever seen!”
“Then why won’t you wear them?”
She made one of the most god-awful faces he’d ever seen—a cringing, sour-lemon sort of look that wrinkled her forehead, squeezed her eyes closed and contorted the lush fullness of her mouth. “It’s embarrassing,” she whispered. “I don’t know how to even say it.”
He drew her with him into the drawing room. “No one will hear you in here. Just tell me, flat out.”
She scrunched her shoulders as if someone were dribbling ice water down her spine. “It’s just—well…”
“Yes?” Luke urged.
“The dressmaker,” she said in a hushed voice. “She made some terrible miscalculations on some of the pattern cuts.”
“Pattern cuts?” he echoed.
She went up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “There is scarcely any front in any of those dresses. Practically all of my bubbies show.”
“Your bubbies?” Luke had heard them called a lot of things, but never that.
“Sshh!”
“Your bubbies?” he repeated more softly. That was what all of this was about? He could scarcely believe his ears. How, precisely, did she hope to provide services to him as a paid companion without revealing her bubbies? “Cassandra…” Luke hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “You are my paid companion now, you know. Given the nature of our relationship—well, if the dresses are a little low-cut, I can understand your not wanting to wear them in public, but surely it’s not a problem here in the house, where only I will see.”
She drew back and splayed a hand over her chest. “Didn’t you hear what I said? The dresses have no front!”
Of course they didn’t. He rubbed his jaw, regarding her thoughtfully. In that moment, it began to dawn on him that she honestly didn’t comprehend exactly what kind of duties he’d hired her to perform.
Those huge blue eyes, always so open and completely guileless. That absolutely angelic face. The sweet innocence in her smile. None of it was an act. The little featherbrain actually believed he had agreed to pay her five hundred dollars a month to keep him company.
“You’re pulling my leg, right?” he asked with a halfhearted chuckle.
“No, I swear to heaven, the dresses have no fronts. At least not much. I couldn’t possibly wear any of them without some other form of cover.” She glanced anxiously toward the hall. “If I dared, certain parts of me would most assuredly fall out.”
Luke could only hope. The corners of his mouth started to twitch. She looked as scandalized as if she’d just encountered a nude man on Main Street. He pitched his voice to an accommodating whisper. “Cassandra, surely you’re exaggerating. All dresses have some front. Let me see.”
She leaped back from his reaching hand. “I can’t do that. You’re going to have to take my word for it, that’s all.”
As jumpy as she was, Luke guessed she was right on that score. Much to his regret.
“I feel so bad,” she told him. “To think that you spent so much money on so little material. That woman cheated you, and she’s stark-raving mad, to boot. No lady in her right mind would wear this dress. And if you could see the nightgowns and underthings she sent? You’d simply faint!”
Luke had spent nearly an hour hand-selecting those nightgowns and underthings. “What, exactly, is wrong with those?”
“Holes.”
“Holes?”
“In the lace,” she expounded. “Very large holes. Or, if not that, barely any material, and that not sewn together, leaving slits everywhere.”
“Surely not.”
She nodded emphatically. Luke rubbed his jaw again and gave the plackets of his shirt a pointed glance. It wasn’t lost on him that she’d selected one of the finest silk shirts in his wardrobe instead of a more serviceable cotton one, nor did he miss the way she frequently reached down to lightly run her fingertips over the soft velvet of her new dress. Like every other woman he’d ever known, this girl had a weakness for pretty things, no question about it.
“I’m so sorry,” she said in a voice that quavered and yet managed to sound prim. “After all the trouble you went to, I hated to have to tell you. There’s no way around it, though. You’ll just have to return my old clothes to me and take all the new ones back.”
That could prove difficult, given the fact that he’d had all her other clothing burned. “I see. Well…”
“Do you think you’ll have any problem getting your money refunded?”
“I hope not.” He assumed a pensive expression and told himself to ignore the hint of lavender wafting from her skin. “Odd, isn’t it? I selected all those dresses from a display rack. On the hangers, they didn’t look frontless. Maybe you should show me exactly what the problem is so I’ll know what I’m talking about when I go into the shop for a refund.”
Her eyes went round with what could only be described as horror. “Show you?”
“Just a quick peek,” he assured her.
She pitched her voice to a whisper again. “But half my bubbies are bare.”
A tight sensation grabbed Luke by the throat. He swallowed it down. “Cassandra, don’t be silly. It can’t be that bad,” he chided gently. “All I want is a quick peek. I spent a lot of money. How will I ever get it back if I can’t point out to the dressmaker what the problem is?”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, biting down so hard the flesh whitened. “Well, I suppose…since you put it that way.”
“It’s necessary,” he assured her. “And completely proper, under the circumstances.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.”
With cheeks aflame and hands trembling, she shyly opened the shirt, holding the plackets apart only long enough to give him exactly what he’d requested, a very quick peek. Nevertheless, he glimpsed enough lovely breast and cleavage to drive a saint to rape.
As she rebuttoned the shirt, he wheeled toward the liquor cabinet. A stiff drink held sudden appeal. He sloshed brandy into a tumbler, recalling as he tossed down a hearty swallow how he’d fantasized about savoring the taste of it on her swollen nipples. Fat chance. She actually believed he wanted her to be his friend, for Christ’s sake. How Milo Zerek had raised this girl in mining towns without her becoming corrupted, Luke didn’t know. But somehow the sanctimonious little son of a bitch had managed.
Time, he assured himself. He only needed some time to seduce her. It was a goal he intended to achieve by evening’s end. Innocent or no, she had the body of a temptress. And any woman who reached Cassandra’s age with her virginity still intact had to be as randy as he was. Not to mention frustrated as hell. All he had to do was make her aware of the needs of her own body.
A virgin…an honest-to-God virgin. The word hung in Luke’s head, and no matter how he circled it, he couldn’t quite believe it.
Luke had sensed that Cassandra was different, of course, and he’d guessed that she’d led a more sheltered existence than most. But a virgin? To his way of thinking, there were laws of nature that always held true. Candles went out in a strong draft, sugar cubes melted in a downpour, and girls raised in mining districts got their bellies plowed at a very young age. Luke had never done the honors. Raised in a whorehouse and initiated into sexual relationships by an aging prostitute when he was twelve, he’d always preferred experienced bed partners.
What, exactly, was he supposed to do with a goddamned virgin? He wanted her in his bed, dammit. Tonight.
“Sherry?” he offered, glancing over his shoulder at her.
Still fastening the last button of his shirt—the one that joined the collar snugly beneath her chin—she looked up, her expression rather startled. “Sherry? Oh, heavens, no. I intend to join the convent, you know. I mentioned that to you this morning.”
At the very thought, Luke bit down so hard on his back teeth that he nearly cracked a molar. “Ah, yes, I remember your saying something about that.” He flashed what he hoped was a harmless-looking grin. “Surely sherry’s allow
ed. It’s wine, after all, and even nuns have a bit of that every day at Mass.”
“I don’t think it’s quite the same thing. Do you?”
“A splitting of hairs.”
His brandy snifter halfway to his lips, Luke studied her for a long moment, slowly absorbing the innocence in her gaze, the artless way she smiled. From the beginning, it had been those very things about her that had attracted him so strongly. Now they were becoming a very big pain in the goddamned ass. A man didn’t lighten his pocket to the tune of five hundred a month only to look at a woman and not touch. She was his, bought and paid for, dammit. For a year, anyway.
He cleared his throat and schooled his features, glancing into his snifter before impaling her with his most wheedling smile. “Please, Cassandra, won’t you join me?”
“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer tea.”
Disgruntled, Luke reached for the bell to summon a servant. Before he could grasp the handle, she said, “Oh, please, may I go to the kitchen and ask for it myself?”
“Whatever for?”
“I’d like to check on Khristos. Mrs. Whitmire said he was in the kitchen. I couldn’t come downstairs earlier because I had nothing to wear, so I haven’t had a chance to speak to him. I want to be sure he’s settled in and that he isn’t feeling afraid. He’s only eight, you know, and with Papa in jail, he’s already upset. Being brought here, being surrounded by strangers. I’m sure he doesn’t understand what’s going on. Do you mind if I go to see him for a bit?”
The last time Luke had checked, the kid had been sitting on a stool in the kitchen, devouring cookies faster than Cook could take them from the oven. Nevertheless, he could tell by the worried expression in Cassandra’s eyes that nothing short of seeing Khristos for herself would ease her mind. “You won’t stay long, I hope? I’d like to chat a bit before supper.”
She gathered up her skirt. “I’ll be back before you can blink.” At the doorway, she spun around. “Oh, my…I nearly forgot. I can’t go to the kitchen like this.” She made a fist in the front of his borrowed shirt. “Would you mind terribly asking for my clothes to be brought back? It won’t take me a minute to change.”