Enticing the Earl

She yanked away from him, sensing the rage in his body. She didn’t want him to be angry with her. After all he’d done for her, the least she could do was listen to him. “Very well.”

“Thank you.”

Mia rode back to Hartsfield Park with Johnny as a silent companion. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist the few times she had seen him in the house. Tonight, she didn’t mind since it gave her time to think.

She had seen Simon angry before, but tonight she had seen a dangerous side to him. She believed that if he had found Davies in the garden, Simon would have beaten him in retaliation for what he’d done to her. While Davies probably deserved such a beating, she had no desire to watch it.

The irritation Simon had felt toward her seemed to dissipate as she told him the entire truth. He hadn’t done any of the things she thought he might. Instead of evicting her, he listened as she talked and then had asked her to ride with him. While he raised his voice a few times, she’d never felt as if he would hurt her. In fact, he’d done the opposite. He’d done everything to protect her, from bringing the footmen, to forcing her to leave for her own safety.

If she wasn’t careful, she might just fall for the man.

And now that she knew she was most likely carrying Davies’s child, she couldn’t fall in love with him. But she did want him. And did it matter if she and Simon had intercourse? He already knew she suspected she was with child so she couldn’t try to pass Davies’s child as Simon’s. Not that she would ever do such a thing.

Once she arrived back at the stables, she walked up to Cupid’s fountain and sat on the edge. The gurgling water should have eased her frustration but it only seemed to make her feel more anxious. Being with Simon would not solve anything. She couldn’t marry him. He didn’t seem to want her as a mistress.

So the only reason to be with him was pure selfish pleasure.

She looked across the field as the sound of horses galloping brought her out of her musing. Her heart started to pound in her chest as she saw Simon ride his black gelding. The man was magnificent in form. The horses slowed to a stop. Simon jumped down and instead of giving the reins to a stable boy, he walked Mars into the stable.

When he walked back out over thirty minutes had passed. He’d removed his jacket and the white linen of his shirt was like a beacon. She couldn’t take her eyes from him as he came closer.

“What are you doing out here so late? I assumed you were already tucked in your bed fast asleep.” He sat down on the edge of the fountain next to her.

Her senses seemed overwhelmed with him. A hint of leather, horses, and his spicy soap intoxicated her. The heat of his body radiated to her, warming her as the night cooled. She glanced over at him and had such an urge to kiss him. His molded lips were in a thin line as if he were in serious thought, his gray eyes stared back at her in such an erotic way it astounded her. It all brought back images of what they’d done in the study.

“Mia?”

She shook the images from her mind. “I couldn’t sleep until you returned safely.”

A slight smile lit his face. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Caring enough to want me safe,” he whispered.

Who could not want this wonderful man safe? After all he’d done tonight and the past ten days for her. “Simon,” she said and then stopped.

“What is it?”

“I want you,” she whispered. “Now.”

Chapter 13

Simon felt as if the air had been completely sucked out of him. He’d waited for so many years to hear those words from her. But common sense dictated that he refuse her. Even as his cock hardened.

“Mia, we have been through this. I won’t dishonor you with an arrangement.”

“What if I want to become your mistress?” she whispered so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

“What?”

“At least until I get too heavy with child. Then we would have to stop until after the baby is born.”

Simon shook his head. Everything he’d wanted for the past twelve years was in his grasp. All he had to do was say yes. “No, Mia. It wouldn’t be right. You need the next nine months to focus on this child.”

She ripped her hand out of his grip and stood up. “I don’t want to focus on this baby. I don’t want this baby. Allan was a fiend and now I’m having a fiend’s child. God only knows what this baby will turn out like. I don’t want it.”

“But becoming my mistress won’t change the fact that you are with child.”