Mistress of Deception

'You...you do?'

There was something enchanting about the way she was looking up at him now, something soft and sweet and vulnerable. Ebony vulnerable he had little experience with, and he warmed to it. Like her tears, it made him want not so much to make love to her, but to simply take her in his arms and reassure her. But he dared not do so in his present state.

His hand reached out to tip her chin up further so that he was looking deep into those beautiful black eyes of hers. 'Yes, I love you. There's no longer any doubt in my mind. I can't say I loved you at fifteen, or even at eighteen, but by the time you were twenty-one I'd fallen in love with you. Is that what you wanted to hear?'

'Yes,' she said, her voice quavering but her eyes glittering with what might have been tears, or triumph. Alan wasn't sure. The latter possibility bothered him for a second, but then she was snaking her long white fingers up around his neck and pulling his mouth to hers, and he didn't care any longer.

A curling sensation contracted his stomach when her tongue sought his, his desire leaping madly. Later, perhaps, he thought, desperately trying to control himself. Later...

His breathing was heavy by the time he pulled away. And so was hers. Her eyes were dilated, and her lips remained tantalisingly parted. I could take her now, he realised, She probably wouldn't stop me, despite her holier-than-thou assertion about not wanting sex for a while.

This realisation had an unnerving and dampening effect on him for once. Ebony as his secret mistress could be as wanton and willing as she liked. The Ebony he loved and wanted to marry was another matter. He would have preferred her to be a little less susceptible to a mere kiss.

'I think we'd better go,' he announced, and abruptly pulled the door shut behind her.

'Where... where are you taking me?' she asked as they made their way down the stairs.

Alan tried not to scowl at her, but, dear lord, even her voice sounded aroused. All breathless and husky and yes... seductive.

'To dinner, of course,' came his curt answer.

'Yes, but what restaurant?'

'Does it matter?'

'No, I suppose not.'

He ground to a halt. Damn it, but he'd see for himself what she was made of, if she had any control at all. 'Would you rather we go back upstairs and ring for a pizza?'

He watched her stiffen. 'No, Alan, I don't want to do that. I told you.'

'Just testing. Let's go, then.'

Ebony mulled over Alan's 'just testing' as they drove towards the city. He hadn't been kidding, she realised with some dismay. He had been testing her, seeing if a single kiss could change her mind about going back inside.

True, it had been hard to turn him down. She loved him. But her desire

to forge a real relationship was much stronger than her desire for physical gratification.

Ebony knew, however, that the biggest hurdle to their having a happy life together was Alan's ambivalent feelings about her past behaviour. He had a conservative streak in him that had been seriously challenged by their clandestine and strictly sexual affair. It had troubled him in many ways, not the least of which was that she'd once been his ward, an innocent child whose moral welfare he had been supposed to protect.

Of course, he'd justified it in his mind by thinking of her as a tramp with no morals to speak of. That way, he'd lessened his guilt, but without entirely eliminating it. His opinion of her basic character didn't seem to have changed either, despite his feelings having changed. His lust might have deep- ened to love, but she was still, in his eyes, a loose woman.

The Alan Carstairs she knew would not marry a loose woman. Certainly not with an easy mind. Ebony believed she had to convince Alan she was nothing of the kind, otherwise any marriage between them was as doomed as their affair had been.

Thinking about marriage and Alan reminded Ebony of her one-time nemesis, Adrianna. Funny, not at any time today had she thought to question Alan over the woman he'd once wanted to marry. But, having thought of her, she could not remain silent.

'What about Adrianna?' she blurted out.

'What about her?'

'Do you still love her?'

Why did he hesitate? Why didn't he just say, No Ebony, how could I love her and love you at the same time?

'No,' he said slowly at long last. 'No, I do not still love Adrianna.'