She knew she was flushed with anger and humiliation, but even Max’s pitying look wasn’t going to stop her now.
“So…my reputation was destroyed, and I have little hope of making the sort of marriage I always believed I would. All the more reason to become a courtesan like my mother.”
“Miss Greentree.”
“No, let me finish, Max. As a courtesan I can live a free and unfettered life, without any ties and responsibilities except to myself and those men I decide to favor with my…eh, gifts. I am not at all conventional, Lord Roseby, and I don’t fear the censure of my peers—besides, I mean to take on a new identity to protect my family. I am quite determined in this matter, but I know I cannot do it alone. I need Aphrodite’s approval. I need her patronage and her help.”
“Miss Greentree—” he croaked desperately.
“I have spoken to her in regard to my wishes and she has agreed to help me, on the condition that I prove to her that I am serious in my desire. And to do that I must first play at being a courtesan with a gentleman who will agree to act as my practice partner. A temporary affair, my mother calls it, to enable me to learn some of the skills I will need, and at the same time refine them upon a willing gentleman. She thinks it is important that we take these precautions, in case I change my mind—I assure you, Max, I won’t! But to please my mother the gentleman must be discreet, so that there will be no harm done. Well apart from what has been done already, I suppose. But the world will see me as no different—in their eyes the affair never happened—that is the important thing.”
She leaned closer, meeting his unblinking gaze with a humorless little smile. “So there you are, Max. I need a discreet gentleman to help me prove to Aphrodite that I have the aptitude to become a courtesan.”
“I don’t want to hear any more,” Max said, and his mouth was hard and straight. “I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no, no and no.”
“Why not? My mother thinks you are just the man for the part. Don’t you want to spend the entire night with me, Max?” She gave him her wide-eyed and innocent look.
Max’s eyes turned dark but he struggled on. “How can you imagine for a moment that a gentleman would even consider such a preposterous and ridiculous—”
“Please, listen to me,” Marietta cut through his outburst, reaching out to rest her hand on his sleeve. “Just listen,” she insisted. “Aphrodite suggested that you might be the very man I need because you are a gentleman.”
He was watching her as one might watch a dangerous serpent—very warily. “So when you say ‘practice’ you do not mean we would actually…?”
“I would try out my skills on you, such as they are, and you would react. You in turn would teach me from your own experience—which Aphrodite assures me is vast. There may be limits to what we can do, I don’t know.” She shrugged to show her indifference to the possibility that they may actually lie together in a bed like this. As though her heart was not slamming in her chest like a steam train.
Max knew he was too weak to cope with this now. He knew he shouldn’t make any decisions or say anything until he’d had a good night’s sleep. He knew all this, and still he was fascinated by her suggestion—fascinated and horrified, all at the same time. A temporary affair, was that what she really wanted? Testing out her skills on him, practicing at being a courtesan like her mother? And he was meant to be her, what, her mentor? Giving her hints on how to…to make a man insensible with lust? He swallowed, his imagination working furiously.
It was bizarre. It was…tempting. Too tempting, because he wanted her, and a voice in his head was telling him that this was the ideal way in which to have what he wanted.
Marietta Greentree had just offered him the perfect arrangement.
And yet he felt compelled to put up some sort of resistance—for the sake of his upbringing as well as his already complicated life. “Marietta, a gentleman does not, under any circumstances, compromise a lady. And you, de
spite your parentage, are very much a lady.”
Marietta sighed impatiently and shook her head at him as if he was slow-witted. “That is the whole point of choosing you. You are too much the gentleman to spread rumors, Max. And what is the use of being a lady if my reputation causes every gentleman who meets me to turn tail and run? You are involved in a scandal yourself, you know what it is like. I have had to suffer that for four years!”
“You will fall in love again and—”
She gave a bitter little laugh that he had not heard from her before. “No, I will not. I have no intention of ever loving a man again so that he can break my heart and destroy my life. I am not a fool, and I learn quickly, and that is one lesson I have learned well.”
She meant it. He could see it in her eyes. Behind smiling and beautiful Marietta Greentree was another woman, a somber woman, and she had been broken and she had been hurt. And she had not recovered. Max felt something hot and violent streak through him.
“What is his name?” he demanded.
She stopped, looking puzzled. “His name?”
“The man who did that to you. What is his name, who is he?”
Something else flickered in her eyes—she was disappointed in him, and at first he didn’t understand why. “You want to know his name? Is that so you can ask him the details? I assure you, Max, that I have told you the truth. If you have not heard of my plight…well, you have only to make inquiries. Some kind soul will be only too pleased to educate you on the finer points of my ruination and disgrace.”
He shook his head impatiently. “I’m not interested in that. I want to know his name so that I can break his neck.”
She was shocked. The thought that his righteous anger on her behalf was new to her made him even more furious. Had she no brothers or a father to avenge her lost honor? No, clearly not. Marietta Greentree had no Max Valland to ride on his white charger to her rescue, and the injustice of it made his heart ache.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she said at last, biting her lip to hide a smile. He had pleased her. “I appreciate it, Max, truly, but I want to put all that behind me. I don’t know where he is, and nor do I want to. I am looking to the future, to my life as a courtesan. If you want to play the gallant hero, then that is where you can do the most good. Help me to learn about passion and desire.”
Passion and desire, dear God…