At Your Pleasure by Meredith Duran

her, so strongly and so painfully, of all the dreams for herself that had not come true. Then she might have pondered disgrace with him. Her body could no longer betray her. Only her soul would be jeopardized by the pleasures of his embrace.
    The prospect made her mouth go dry, and her misery pitch higher.
    Not he. Never again.
    He pivoted back and ran a disinterested glance down her body. “My mistake,” he said, as if his survey of her had convinced him of it. “I offer you my apologies, madam. It will not happen again.”
    The fresh pain that lanced through her made her realize that she had been hoping for a different answer—a denial of the words she’d not even spoken aloud.
    Those women in London were nothing to me, she had wanted him to say. You were different, Nora. You were special.
    God, what a fool she was!
    “Will you ride, or will you walk?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “It makes no difference,” she said dully.
    Adrian held the gelding to a walk as they exited the grove. Emerging from the dappled light into the blaze of the midday sun, he felt as though he were coming awake. The feeling was akin to a drinker’s regret after a night spent too deep in his cups. His head ached, and he raged at his own stupidity.
    Nora— Lady Towe— rode pillion behind him, her shoulder nudging his spine with each stride. Her thigh pressed against his lower back, full and soft beneath her skirts.
    A violent feeling leapt through him: loathing for her and for himself. There was something ridiculous and abominably comic about the bodily appetites. That this stubborn, prideful termagant could be his weakness—that her temper might spur him to passion—when he had forgotten a dozen clever-tongued beauties the morning after bedding them: was this a recipe for self-respect?
    She had rejected him time and again. How many lessons would it take to educate him?
    The horse loosed a snort and shook its head in protest. He relaxed his grip on the reins, fully in accord with his mount’s opinion of him.
    When his majesty had put this task to him, he’d agreed at once. He knew the danger of failure, but not accepting held a greater risk. One wonders that he scruples to hunt Jacobites, his enemies would have whispered. Perhaps he still harbors an affinity for popish causes.
    Since his childhood he had watched his family be harassed and punished for their faith. He had been forced abroad by laws that denied English Catholics an education, and in his years of absence, a younger brother and sister had come into the world and died as strangers to him. He had missed years of his family’s lives. For a time, after his return, he had managed to accept this. Trusting to the goodness of the world like all innocent fools, he had hoped for contentment.
    But then Nora’s family had done him a favor. They had shown him the cost of his naïveté. They had taught him very neatly how a Catholic, no matter his station, might be abused and discounted with no fear for repercussions.
    His own father, who had seemed like a giant to him as a boy, had counseled him to flee like a mouse in the night. You fool, he had spat. Think you we can afford such enemies? Know you nothing of the world? Our safety lies in keeping unto ourselves!
    Adrian’s mind had changed then. He would not spend his life skulking for fear. He would not place his head in the yoke and meekly labor on, content to be abused and ignored as a popish idolater.
    He would pursue power instead. He would amass enough of it to ensure that nobody ever again thought it safe to spit on the Ferrers.
    The first step had been to conform to the High Church. He had waited until his father’s death to do it. His brother had reviled the decision; his mother had given him up for damned. He had held fast against tears and threats, with no moment of doubt, and he had profited by it greatly. Before her death, the queen had promised to see him made Captain of the Gentleman Pensioners—a position of no