Free The General's Mistress by Jo Graham Page A

my comfort and of my feelings. That was a truly novel experience.
    He had certainly seemed attuned to my feelings last night, I thought, dreamily splashing myself with water, as though my excitement were the spur to his passion. In my admittedly limited previous experience, men scarcely required that. The mere sight of a breast or a thigh was enough to transport them. My active participation was hardly required. And yet Moreau had gone to vast pains to make me want him.
    I didn’t know if I liked him, but I certainly desired him. I could admit that to myself.
    I had perhaps exaggerated his age to my cousin Maria. He was closer to thirty-five than forty, and if he was not extravagantly handsome, he was certainly good-looking. If he was not tall, he was certainly well made, with the lean body of a manwho spent his days in great activity and was abstemious with both wine and food.
    Discipline, I thought. He is about discipline and mastery over himself. That is the key to Moreau. And so perhaps what he craves is its opposite humor, utter abandonment? Is that what completes him?
    I stretched back in the water. Perhaps I would not mind that at all under his cool tutelage.

A New Life

    T hus I entered into a period of my life that I liked far better than I had expected. I lived in the house in utter respectability, directing the servants as though I were the lady of the house and doing as I wished. As soon as he learned that I was not a spendthrift, Moreau had no qualms about turning over the running of the household to me, and I was meticulous about keeping his books separate from mine, and his money separate from the money that he gave me. He inspected his own books regularly, and was as thorough and conscientious in that as in everything. My bookkeeping earned a nod of approval, as it never had from Jan.
    “I see that you know something of finance, Madame,” he said.
    “It’s common sense,” I replied. “And good taste.”
    “You do have good taste,” he said.
    While my taste in gowns was somewhat expensive, it was undeniably good, and if I wore things that previously I would have found too revealing for Madame Ringeling, they were not too revealing for Madame St. Elme.
    I cultivated her as I had Charles, considering character and taste. Ida St. Elme did not wear pale pinks and yellows. She wore blue in every shade, from palest dawn to dark sapphire that brought out the color of her eyes. Her new evening gown was of dark blue-purple satin that plunged deeply in the front, with a high-boned corset that made the most of those attributes Moreau appreciated. Her riding clothes were almost navy, aman’s coat and buff trousers with a little tricorne with a rakish plume. And her nightclothes . . . Madame St. Elme did not usually wear nightclothes, with the exception of a wrapper of blue and white toile.
    There was one very delicate chemise, of the thinnest, lightest lawn with fine lace, the sort of chemise that brides wore. I wore it ripped and torn, one long rent up the side and the lace dangling at the throat, little pink ribbons shredded and trailing. It was the very picture of innocence outraged. When he saw it, Moreau swallowed hard, and a look came over his face that I had waited for.
    I wore it pleading at his feet, lavishing him with tears that were half real, begging and sobbing in two languages. And of course he did not fail me.
    Afterward, for once we lay quiet together. The candles had burned out. His breathing was even and he had forgotten to send me back to my room. I closed my eyes and was almost asleep when I felt his arm around me.
    “My dear,” he said quietly. “That was too real.”
    I licked my swollen lips. “It was,” I said. “Too close.” There was a long silence. “I was that sort of bride once.”
    His hand stroked my hair softly and methodically. “So I had guessed. How old were you?”
    “Twelve,” I said. It was very quiet in the room. Outside, the town and camp were quiet. Far off,