Free One Wicked Sin by Nicola Cornick Page B

steaming jug of water. The man shot Lottie a look, glanced at the tangled bedclothes, and went out smirking.
    “Yes, I see.” Lottie sounded subdued, her head bent, but Ethan could see her frown. “I thought—” She started, stopped. “I did not realize that you would wish to—”
    “To flaunt you in public?”
    She looked up, troubled. “Yes, I suppose so. The fashionable crowd were my acquaintances when I was married. It is awkward—”
    Ethan shrugged, once again repressing that wayward sympathy. There was no room for sentiment and he knew it; he had a very particular purpose for her. She had satisfied his physical needs, for the time being at least, and now she would play another role, that ofthe ostentatious mistress about town. He was intent on creating as much gossip as he possibly could, diverting the attention of the authorities from his true interests and activities. Lottie’s part in his plan was to act as an eye-catching diversion.
    “I understand that,” he said. “But you have a different role now. Besides, you will not be obliged to speak to any of your previous acquaintances, merely to be seen by them.”
    “Of course,” Lottie said. Her voice was bland but her mouth turned down at the implication of his words, that she must display herself before her previous acquaintances marked out as his mistress. Ethan knew she was struggling to repress her protests. Lottie Palliser did not take easily to the role of accommodating Cyprian, he thought.
    “You will be with me,” he said. “That will protect you from any discourtesy.”
    “I am sure it will.” She could not quite erase the sharpness from her tone. “No man of sense would wish to find your sword at his throat.”
    “Then that is settled,” Ethan said. He put out a hand and drew her toward him. He felt a moment’s hesitation in her but she came to him easily enough. He kissed her, long, hard and deep, a claim, an imprint, a statement of possession.
    “You’re with me now,” he repeated softly when he let her go, and he felt a powerful flare of possessiveness. He kissed her again until he felt her relax and respond to him and then his desire caught like a flame again. He was breathing hard when he let her go and he felt shaken.
    What the hell was wrong with him?
    She sat looking at him, a luminous light in her brown eyes, soft hair falling gently about her bare shoulders, her body pure temptation beneath the twisted sheet.
    Ethan stood up, wanting to be gone yet wanting to stay with her, too. The conflict in him puzzled and disturbed him.
    “I have left you some money to buy the gowns,” he said brusquely, gesturing to the bag of guineas on the table. “Buy something suitable. I don’t want you looking like a debutante.”
    Her gaze was very clear as she held his. “I know what you want from me.”
    Swearing under his breath, Ethan went out, down the stairs two at a time, out into the street. He lengthened his stride, putting physical distance between himself and Lottie as though trying to outrun the emotions of the previous night. He felt a sense of relief to have escaped something he could not put a name to but which felt infinitely dangerous.
     
    L OTTIE HAD SEEN Ethan’s relief when he left. It had been in the haste with which he had gone out of the bedchamber; it had been in the tense line of his shoulders and the briskness of his departure and the fact that he had not looked back. She sighed a little as she gathered together the clothes she needed for the day. The intimacy of the night that she and Ethan had spent together had been illusory. She knew that. Physical closeness meant nothing. They were still essentially two strangers who were bound together for as long as Ethan paid for their association to continue. That wastheir relationship, no more. The previous night she had determined not to become emotionally involved with him and make the same mistakes that she had in the past. He could give her nothing of himself.