Silent Surrender Read Online Free Page A

There was something about Coal’s tone, a maddening superiority, as though he laughed at Jude and everything he represented.
    Jude prided himself on his self-control most times, but he couldn’t help another attempt to bring the man to heel. “Don’t entertain any thoughts that this might be a permanent arrangement. Honoria is expected in Paris next month.”
    “Paris?” Coal laughed, a short sound held back by his closed lips. “Never cared to go there, myself. Don’t worry, maestro. I won’t think of tagging along with your girl.”
    “She isn’t my girl,” Jude clarified. “She’s my pupil. I will return to America, and she will go to France, and there my employment ends.”
    The man only smirked maddeningly and headed up the stairs with his heavy steps.
    The door to Honoria’s room remained open, just a crack. The orange firelight flickered on the thick carpet. Jude’s fingers brushed the wood. He imagined opening the door, stepping through, leaning over Honoria as she slept, waking her with kisses…
    All it would take was the slightest pressure of his fingers. But he pulled his hand away. Some doors were best left unopened.
    * * * * *
    Honoria opened her eyes to the dim orange glow of the room bathed in the light of the dying fire. The space beside her was empty. She raised her head, looked about the room, then settled on the pillows again. She had contracted him for five days of lovemaking, not five days of sleeping beside her.
    Rolling to her side, she contemplated the bath, still resting before the fire, water gone cold. Now that she knew the great secret of lovemaking, she could imagine better what it would have been like to climb astride him in that tub.
    She blushed even to think of it, and her hand strayed to her thighs, still sticky with blood and his seed. She wouldn’t wash it off, not just yet, but the brandy irritated her, and she fished the sponge free, wincing as the alcohol touched her newly torn flesh. It had hurt, god, but it had hurt her. Even now she doubted her body had taken his member wholly, though he had driven deep.
    At the memory, her body wept for him again, and she touched herself tentatively. Now that she had been with a man, would it be the same, to stroke her own flesh and imagine? That was the life she resigned herself to, and all she could hope for. She closed her eyes and in the floating darkness recalled the feeling of his arms around her, the crisp hair on his chest rough against her breasts. She thought of the touch of his tongue on her, his body inside hers. There had been a desperation to his restraint. He wasn’t a man used to slowness and gentleness, the tension in his muscles had told her that story as plainly as if it had been written out for her. How would he have treated her if he hadn’t been so careful?
    A frisson of joyful fear and desirous anticipation drove her from the bed, her limbs heavy. She wanted to see him, to know if she’d done well. Though she would pay him for his services, she could not help but wonder if she’d pleased him.
    She looked to the clock on the mantle. It was nearly time for dinner, and it seemed she was always putting someone out with her lateness. She did not wish to sit through another of Jude’s lectures. The man’s hands never tired when scolding.
    Her face burned. Jude knew. That was a part of the plan she hadn’t thought through. She would have to sit across from her friend at dinner, engaged in polite, inane conversation, when all she wanted was to tell him what had happened in the privacy of her bedroom. Jude wouldn’t want to know, though, so she would have to keep her secrets to herself. That was such a lonely prospect.
    She pulled the cord that would call Annie, her maid, and went to her wardrobe to select a dress for dinner. It would have to be mourning black, though she hated the look of it. She mourned for her parents, of course, but she disliked having to give such a bleak outward expression of it. Her