Chapter 9

"Pen and paper, Susan." Striding into the chamber she seemed to have left so short a time, yet a whole world ago, Fury wanted to shriek and scream. She'd no fears about Susan falling beneath Flint's spell. At least, she'd no worries about Flint going beyond that lazy grin with her. Susan was old enough to be his mother. Plump enough too. And Fury would remind her of that later. She gazed into the gilt-framed dressing table mirror.

No. She'd confused this. Confused herself. The question wasn't whether to let him win or lose. The question was whether she won or lost.

Certainly it had been until his tricorne thudded into the ring. Then she'd reacted in a stupid and bizarre fashion. How much simpler to have said, Tell you what, James, let me think it over, wasn't it?

There would be no replaying the scene now. She was going to have to suffer him here.

"And ink," Fury added, seeing Susan's jaw had dropped. Yes, whether he went beyond it or not, Flint's lazy grin was devastating. Why else would Susan be straightening her cap like a moonstruck girl?

"Yes, madam."

Fury's eyes narrowed in the mirror. "When it is convenient to you." Was there no end to the man's lazy appeal?

"Yes, ma'am." Tearing her gaze away from Flint, Susan fumbled in the bedside table drawer. "I was just the ink's there. Here, I mean."

"James, sit down." Fury took the ink bottle before the contents spilt on the floor. "There is a chair there. Susan, this " She hesitated over the word gentleman. There were other, more suitable words. Even to think them would be a further distraction in a very distracted situation. "This is James, by the way. You will be seeing a lot of him over the coming weeks. I advise you to get used to that fact."

"You mean? But "

Give Susan her dues; her jaw might have dropped open, but she knew better than to let anything away. Later Susan would want to know where she got him. And Fury wouldn't tell. There were some things that were made to be kept secret. That was certainly one.

"Oh, James and I are old friends. James, have you sat down yet?"

"Hmm?" Flint ceased his contemplation of the hanging of Messalina adorning the wall behind the bed. Of course he'd have ambled there already.

"What, me?" He smiled, removing his coat. "What do you want me to do that for? This is a nice bed you've got here. Don't you just want to spread out and get to it?"

"No. Susan, leave us."

"Yes, madam."

The door clicked shut. What a mistake this was. But there was no way out. That was why, in determining the necessity of governing her hatred, she'd equally determined what was going to happen would be no pleasure for her.

As for him, well, unfortunately there was going to have to be pleasure for him whoever made that rule had made it only one way for men but she'd ensure it was of the most stringent sort.

If she couldn't keep Captain Flint out her bed, she'd most certainly keep him out her heart.

The man the man was perhaps not entirely as she'd first imagined him downstairs. Indeed, the scholarly look had slipped from his features the second he'd stood, persecuting her on that landing. But a weariness was still there. She saw it in the way he'd stared at that hanging.

He'd forced her into a corner. But the worst of it was the indignation that tore her heart when Malmesbury laughed, and she saw the life he'd been leading. Flint, the great and mighty, wasn't made to polish shoe buckles. As for him being beaten all Malmesbury liked? Something in her had revolted at the thought, something she wasn't responsible for. Some latent form of idiocy that must run in her family, which unfortunately no one had thought to mention she might one day inherit.

Because, of course, he was made to polish shoe buckles, to do whatever he was told. Damn him. And if he'd been beaten, then it hadn't been hard enough. A man like him. That weariness was something she'd exploit. He'd do what he was told. Exactly what he was told.

"What was that about weeks, Fury?"

She sat down and dipped the quill into the ink. She detected the faintest trace of nerves. It must have been the fact Thomas lay in the cellar. Why else would a man, so great, so stalwart, so worldly as Captain Flint be nervous? Of her?

"Well, yes." She listened to the pleasing scratch of the nib on the soft paper. "Babies are not always made in a night. Of course, you wouldn't know that, being you. It will take time."

"All the more reason then to just get going. After all this time, sweetheart, you don't know how eager I am."

He strode across the tiled floor. The ink trailed a long, dark path across the paper as he dragged her to her feet.

Had it blobbed it might have been something to worry about. But she was very set on this. And calm. As calm as one could be having this man in her bedroom, knowing what was coming next out of dire necessity, her husband in a box in the cellar and her cast-off potential lovers on their way out the door.

"No." She held a hand up between their lips. "There will be no kissing."

"No kissing? Why in hell not?"

It displaced her calm to see him grin. If only he was indignant. Especially as he was a man who thought he could settle all his arguments with women anyway with a kiss. But she kept her face cold, blank.

"Because." In some ways she was cold. With rage.

"Aw, come on, Fury, didn't you like my kissing? Hmm?" His breath, hot and male, brushed her fingertips. He wrapped his arms around her, splaying his hands across her back, so her hand might as well not have been there for all the protection it was.

But she was calm. Didn't she have to get into bed with him after all? Even the impulse to squirm was one she'd squash. When she thought of all he'd done to her, and not just to her, she'd give him nothing. Not even the knowledge she found his proximity so unsettling that she'd give her right arm to pull away.

"Your kissing was fine, in its way, I suppose. But kissing is a sign of affection."

"How do you make that out?"