Regency 02 - Betrayal Read Online Free PDF

and for the first time she had
found herself sorely tempted by a man.
    It had only taken the first time he asked her
to be his mistress and she had heard a voice remarkably like her
own saying yes.
    That had been well over a year ago. She had
been an actress since she was twenty. Even at that young age she
had a wisdom beyond her years. She had at one time carried the hope
of meeting and falling in love with a man who would marry her and
save her family from penury. A year of trying to make ends meet on
her meager salary with ten other mouths to feed had changed that.
But she found she was unable to bring herself to say the words that
would seal her fate with some gentleman who was only interested in
her body and not her heart or mind.
    But in Adam she had sensed a need. What it
was, she wasn’t sure. But it was there nonetheless, and she was
willing to try to learn what it was he needed and strive to meet
that need.
    And now, she thought of him as her closest
friend.
    An hour of pleasurable activity later, Raven
half-dozed in the circle of Adam’s arms. They lay on their sides
facing each other and he held her against him while wondering when
he would get bored with her. He was amazed at how long he had been
with her already.
    Normally, he gave a mistress her marching
orders after a relatively short acquaintance. He remembered the
longest as being about two months. They always seemed to become
rather arrogant and sure of his affections. One had even had the
gall to ask when they were to be married. After dropping her
unceremoniously on the floor—he had been in the process of carrying
her up to her bed—he had sworn never to have anything to do with
semi-respectable ladies of the ton again. That was one
promise he had found relatively easy to keep.
    He had never wondered or particularly cared
what went on in any woman’s mind, much less a whore’s. But he often
found himself pondering the inner workings of Raven’s beautiful
head and sometimes even asking her.
    Perhaps he did this because he had trouble
really thinking of her as a whore. She had been innocent until the
first time with him and he had been strangely flattered that she
would choose him for her first sexual experience even though he
knew she had had several offers from half the gentlemen of the beau monde . Surely, she could have found a man far better
heeled than he was and far more handsome, definitely far more
personable?
    But she had chosen him and as much as he
tried to tell himself that she was just like every other woman—a
scheming little adventuress just trying to get her hands on as much
wealth as she could—he was never truly convinced of what to him was
a fact rather than mere conjecture.
    Black eyes opened and gazed sleepily up into
his. He hadn’t even realized he was staring at her. She smiled and
kissed him lightly on the lips. When he didn’t smile back, just
continued to look at her intently, she asked, “Is something wrong,
Adam?”
    He liked her offstage voice. She had a soft,
slightly husky voice that he found soothing and erotic at the same
time. He traced the line of her jaw with one long finger and kissed
her deeply.
    Just before rolling her onto her back and
covering her body with his, he whispered, “I’ll tell you
later.”
    It was some time later that Raven finally had
the answer to her question. Well, an answer at any rate.
    They were once again in the position of him
holding her, only this time he was lying on his back and staring up
at the silk canopy of the bed. She was laying half on top of him,
one hand playing idly with the dark curling hairs on his chest and
one leg draped negligently over both of his. He had drawn the
bedsheet up to cover the lower half of their bodies. Both were
relaxed and smiling.
    They lay like that for several minutes before
Adam recalled her question.
    “Did you really want to know if something was
wrong?” he asked with a slightly cynically inflection in his
voice.
    She cuffed him