The General's Mistress by Jo Graham Page B

first name? It’s a common enough name to be believed to be your own, unlike Semiramis or any of the classical names that are all the rage for courtesans these days.”
    “Why not Lucréce?” I asked, more sharply than I had intended.
    “My dear, if rape were what I enjoyed, my profession would give me ample scope for my pleasures.” He smiled at me. “You sought me out and offered me this bargain. So there is no need to play the victim with me. Unless that’s what you like.”
    I glanced away. He was still standing too close. Sandalwood and orange, and the scent of his skin after a day of work. Dark hair curling close at the back of his neck, and fine hands.
    “Is it?” Victor asked. “The pretense of ravishment? All responsibility for your actions removed? A fairly common fantasy, in my experience, especially among whores who have not admitted it to themselves.”
    I lifted my hand to slap him, but he caught my wrist. He did not bend it, just held it a trifle too tightly for comfort. He could feel the pulse jumping, my heart beating faster, and I could not hide it.
    Victor smiled again, amused and indulgent both. “I don’t think so, my dear. I don’t particularly like being slapped.”
    I looked away from his dark eyes. I was too conscious of my body and his, of this heat I was ashamed of and could not control.
    He opened his grip and traced the veins in my wrist, circling around my thumb and opening my hand. “You have a fine sensibility, my dear. I saw that immediately. Like a delicate-mouthed mare who has never known anyone but an ironhanded lout. But you have no idea how to play the instrument you own.”
    “You are mixing metaphors,” I said. My heart was racing.
    Victor laughed and bent over my hand with a graceful gesture perfectly suited to the drawing room. “You’re clever as well. And of course you know you’re beautiful. Everyone must have told you that since you learned to walk.”
    “Not really,” I said.
    He raised one eyebrow. “Perhaps that accounts for your poor taste so far. So have you in fact slept with anyone besides your husband?”
    “I am not going to answer that,” I said. “I don’t see that it’s any of your business. And you can’t make me tell you.”
    “You will tell me,” he said. “Because you have just told me that you want me to make you. That bit of unnecessary defiance was very illuminating.” He crossed behind me and did not touch me, just stood close enough behind that I could feel the heat of his body, not quite against mine. “You want to be made to do things so that you don’t have to admit that you want them. So that you don’t have to accept your own deliciously carnal nature. Why else did you come here?”
    “I had nowhere else to go,” I said. I waited for him to touch me.
    “That’s not strictly true, is it, my dear? You could have gone on to Paris in disguise. You could have appealed to Meynier’s gallantry. You could have taken a ship to England. In actuality, you had many options.”
    He did not touch me. When was he going to touch me? He was just standing there at my back, so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek as he leaned forward.
    “You could have gone many other places besides here. ‘I had no other choice’ is an excuse for weak-willed fools. You sought your own ruin. You chased after it gladly.”
    Now at last I felt his arm go around my waist, felt his lean, muscled form against my back. His hand slid up and cupped my breast, stroking the nipple agonizingly slowly through the cloth of my shirt. I took a ragged breath.
    “You want me to take you. You want me to humiliate youutterly, to bring you absolute abasement. And for it all to be my fault. For it to be my perversion, not yours.”
    Abruptly his fingers snapped my nipple, pinching it painfully. I twisted and let out a moan. He released me. I staggered and almost fell.
    “I am not going to do that, my dear,” he said. His tone was conversational, but I could