Where Dreams Begin(27)

“No, thank you,” Holly interrupted hastily, pressing her hands over her burning ears. “I see your tactic, Mr. Bronson. You are trying to distract me with tales of other mens' disgraceful behavior to divert attention from your own. However, I have set my terms, and I insist that you abide by them. And if you bring one woman of low character to this house and have intimate relations with her, I will break off our arrangement at once.”

Bronson plucked a slice of toast from a delicate silver rack and proceeded to heap it with marmalade. “For what I'm having to put up with,” he said darkly, “I'd better learn a hell of a lot from you.”

“I've promised to instruct you to the best of my ability. And please do not gesture with that utensil.”

Grimacing, Bronson set the spoon back into the crystal preserves dish. “Instruct all you like, my lady. Just don't try to reform me.”

He was an incorrigible scoundrel, and yet his unrepentant wickedness held a certain charm. Holly wondered why she found him so strangely likable. Perhaps she had been surrounded by honorable men for a little too long.

“Mr. Bronson,” she said, “I hope someday you'll understand that the sexual act can be so much more than you understand it to be. It is an elevated expression of love…a communion of souls.”

Bronson responded with a low laugh, as if he were mightily entertained by the notion that she might know something about physical intercourse that he did not. “It's a simple bodily need,” he countered. “No matter how many minstrels and poets and novelists have tried to make it seem otherwise. And it happens to be one of my favorite pastimes.”

“Do it all you like, then,” she said tartly. “Just not in this house.”

He gave her a smile designed to cause annoyance. “I intend to.”

Six

As Zachary code to town at a breakneck pace, he tried to gather his thoughts in preparation for a board meeting. The day was one he had anticipated for a long time. He would be signing a deal, along with two co-owners of a massive soap factory, to improve the factory as well as build new housing for many of their employees. Zachary's co-owners, both of them born into the aristocracy, had resisted such expenditures, pointing out that production at the factory was at such a profitable level that no improvements were needed. They had called Zachary's insistence on making the improvements a waste of money. After all, they had both remarked, factory workers were accustomed to the squalid conditions they lived and worked in and would expect nothing else.

It had taken a great deal of stubbornness and bullying for Zachary to make his partners understand his view, that the workers would be even more productive if their daily lives weren't such a damned misery. He knew exactly why his partners had finally caved in to his demands. They considered themselves too refined and gentlemanly to involve themselves in the dirty concerns of factory life. They preferred to leave all that to him, which was fine. More than fine. He would manage the business to his satisfaction, and see that they all made money in the future. In fact, he would make certain their annual profits would double, and their factory would eventually be a model for all others in London. “Just sign and keep your mouth shut,” one of the partners had advised the other in Zachary's presence. “We've done well enough with Bronson so far, haven't we? He's taken my original investment and made it into the largest source of income my family has ever known. Why quibble with success?”

The upcoming meeting, and his plans for the factory, were all that Zachary should be thinking about. However, his mind was filled with Lady Holly: the air of sweet earnestness that tempted him to ruffle and tease her, and the sad, secretive mouth that sometimes curved into an unexpectedly dazzling smile.

Zachary found her irresistible, though he was not certain precisely why. He had encountered nice women before, kind and virtuous women whom he had admired. But he had never felt the barest stirring of desire for any of them. Goodness did not excite him. Innocence in any form was not titillating in the least. He preferred to spend his time with sexually experienced women, the ones with naughty gazes and adventurous souls, the ones whose manicured hands strayed beneath the tables at dinner parties. He was especially fond of women who had a strong command of swear words and dirty language, women who might appear ladylike on the outside but were decidedly abandoned in the bedroom.

Lady Holly was none of those things. In fact, taking her to bed would not be an adventure in any sense of the word. Why, then, did the very thought of it cause him to break out in a sweat? Why was he aroused by the mere fact of being in the same room with her? She was pretty, but he had known women of great beauty before. Her figure was pleasing but not spectacular, and she did not possess the long, elegant lines that were currently so admired. In fact, she was short. A grin tugged at his mouth as he imagined her na**d between the silk sheets of his enormous bed. He could imagine no more desirable activity than chasing that short, curvaceous figure from one corner of the mattress to the other.

But that would never happen. To his great regret, Zachary acknowledged that he liked Lady Holly far too much to seduce her. She would be devastated by the experience. Any temporary pleasure she felt would soon be overwhelmed by guilt and remorse. And she would hate him for it. Better to leave her as she was, content with the happy memories of her late husband, keeping herself for George Taylor until they met again in the next world.

Zachary could get physical satisfaction from other women, but no one else could supply him with what Holly could. She was intelligent, principled and fascinating, and as long as he didn't misbehave too badly, he could have her company for a year. That was far more important than one night's tumble, no matter how pleasurable it might be.