A Reckless Desire Read Online Free Page A

signore,
” she answered sweetly instead, a bold-faced lie if ever there was one. Then she switched to French.
“Mais ma mère était française, pas Italienne.”
    He turned around quickly with surprise, the dressing gown whipping about him. “You speak French, too? Ah, that is,
votre parlez,
ah,
parlent français
?”
    “Oui, mon seigneur,”
she answered, and then returned to English, for the sake of sparing him. “My mother danced with the French Opera. I was born in Paris.”
    “Er, ah, so you were,” he said uncomfortably, and in English, too. “I can hear it now.”
    She smiled, trying to be encouraging. He might be unnecessarily vain of his Italian, but at least he realized that his French was abysmal.
    “I will learn in whichever language you care to teach, my lord,” she said. “Though I should prefer English, for it is the English stage I wish to conquer.”
    “You must obey me in everything,” he said, clearly relieved to once again be in unquestionable charge, “no matter how foolish it may seem to you. I will devise a plan of lessons that must be studied and followed. You will not be permitted to disagree.”
    “I won’t, my lord,” she said promptly.
    He nodded. “If we are to do this properly, you must resign your position at the Royal, and devote yourself entirely to your studies with me.”
    Her eyes widened. “But I’ll have no earnings, my lord. How shall I support myself if I cannot work?”
    “You won’t need earnings,” he said, standing there like some great, golden, pagan god who could order the world to his liking. “Not while you’re with me.”
    That made her uneasy. “I cannot simply disappear from the company, my lord. Who would take my place? Who would do my tasks?”
    “I should think any maidservant from the street could do them,” he said. “But I’ll speak to Magdalena, and arrange to pay for another girl who’ll take your place while—”
    “No!” she cried, and instantly retreated. “That is, my lord, I should rather that my cousin and the others not know of this…experiment until it is complete.”
    “But they must know something,” he reasoned, “because you’ll no longer be in their midst. For you to make the most progress, I’ll want you to stay here with me. If I am to devote all my waking hours to you, I expect you to do the same.”
    She ducked her chin, her cheeks hot. “Forgive me, my lord, but I…I cannot do that. I wish to be an actress, yes, but I don’t want to share your bed.”
    He smiled, bemused. “You truly aren’t a dancer, are you? You don’t have the necessary wantonness, or the predatory heart that goes with it, either.”
    Her flush deepened. “No, my lord.”
    “I don’t expect you to be my mistress,” he said, smiling still. “You’ll have a bed of your own in a room of your own, with a latch on the door if that makes you feel safer. I shall expect you to attend me throughout the day, and I should like it if you dined with me, but you have my word that your virtue shall be safe.
Entirely
safe.”
    “Thank you, my lord,” she said softly. There couldn’t be a better arrangement, and she was fortunate he felt this way. Yet even so, a small, perverse part of her wished he didn’t find her so unbearably plain and undesirable that the very notion of it made him smile.
    “I’ll send word to Magdalena that you’ll be in my care,” he said, striding across the room to his desk. “I’ll write it now, so you may deliver it to her yourself.”
    She shook her head swiftly. “If you please, my lord, she must not know anything. Truly. You heard her last night. She won’t permit it.”
    “She will if I tell her to,” he said, reaching for a fresh sheet of a paper. “She won’t be able to argue if I assume responsibility for you.”
    “Please, my lord,” she begged. How could she explain to him that it wasn’t well-meant concern for her welfare that would make her cousin object, but reluctance to part with a